


Girls Are Like Guns

by Bootsncatz (bootsncatz)



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Because I love me a trope, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Fake Sex, Spy - AU, Super spy action, Wayhaught - Freeform, also cross dressing, and a vespa, because its funny - Freeform, cocky Nicole, obviously, sex is in ch8 ya filthy animals, there's only one train car, they drive a motorcycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-01-02 06:40:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21157280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bootsncatz/pseuds/Bootsncatz
Summary: Waverly has been working as a handler for Wynonna at the CSIS for years. But when a highly classified piece of technology decides to attach itself to her, she gets paired with the FBI's star agent, Nicole Haught, to deliver the technology safely across the border. That is if she can stand working with the cocky and annoyingly charming Agent Haught for that long.The Wayhaught Spy AU we definitely didn't need.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again all!
> 
> With Yeehaw Nicole and Waverly behind us, we move on to Special Agent Nicole Haught and Waverly Earp. FBI and CSIS come together to solve a kooky mystery and ultimately, fall in love [cue them in super cool spy gear standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower. The moon makes them look like silhouettes to the camera and as the music swells, they kiss]. 
> 
> Anyways, I felt like writing an enemies to lovers type AU and I have been waiting to write a spy fic for about a year so here we are! I hope you enjoy, I'm already having a fun time writing this.
> 
> As always, thank you to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo)for being the best beta ever.

The bar wasn’t as dark as it seemed, but rolling clouds of cigarette smoke made it almost impossible to see. Wynonna could feel the old, worn carpet crunching under her feet, and cringed. Not that she expected much more from a bar that had fake wood paneling everywhere and curled, dusty posters featuring bikini-clad blond models advertising beer plastering the walls. One even wore Canadian-themed bikini, white with a red maple leaf on each cup and one strategically placed over her crotch. Next to her was a stuffed beaver holding a can of beer.

_Better Beavers Love Canadian Brew!_

Still, it wasn’t the worst bar Wynonna had ever been in. She blinked some of the smoke away, eyes casually roaming the bar until they landed on a mustached man at the end. Blue eyes practically pierced through the smoke and she smirked. Bingo. 

She started to walk towards him when another man at the bar wolf whistled at her, his buddies chuckling. She rolled her eyes and shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, sliding onto a stool a couple down from the man. 

He wore a wide brimmed cowboy hat and a vest like he’d just walked off the set of an old western film. Seemed an interesting choice if you were trying to blend in, but Wynonna was grateful he seemed to be bad at his job. Ordering a whiskey from the bartender, she could feel the man’s eyes on her, and tried to act like she didn’t. She shrugged her jacket off and set it on the seat between them. Sliding a bill across the bar towards the bartender, she gave him a wink and he just grunted, looking her over. 

Wynonna leaned forward on the bar with her elbows just so, in a way she knew made her breasts swell over her shirt. Her number one weapon.

“What is a woman like you doin’ in a place like this?” the man besides her drawled.

Hook, line, and sinker.

She took a sip of her whiskey before turning in her chair with a smirk. “Oh, you know, just hoping a man dressed like John Wayne would try to pick me up.”

Two drinks and some heavy flirting later, Wynonna had him pinned against the bathroom door. Somehow it smelled even more like smoke in there and Wynonna almost choked. But her lips sealed hot, wet, and convincing over the man whose code name was Doc. A special agent for S.W.A.N. who was holding a piece of technology that she needed to get for CSIS.

Wynonna had an inkling it was in his front pocket. Men tended to keep this important shit closest to their junk. Which felt stupid because who knew if it was giving off enough radiation to turn their sperm into mangled monsters. Either way, it wasn’t Wynonna’s problem. 

With her tongue, she plied a tiny capsule from behind her right molar, keeping it on the end of her tongue as she pushed it back into Doc’s mouth. She pressed it to the back of his teeth so the casing broke and then quickly pulled away. 

A look of confusion passed over Doc’s face for just a brief moment, until his eyes widened in realization. Wynonna puckered her lips in an air kiss as his eyes got glossy and he slid to the floor, passed out. 

“Sorry, Doc, it was fun while it lasted,” Wynonna said, pressing a couple of fingers to his pulse to make sure he was just asleep. Her instinct told her to talk to Waverly in her ear but she remembered she’d gone off the grid for this one. The bar was on her way home, after all, and she knew where Doc was. No point waiting for the “official” mission, or whatever.

Wynonna grabbed the lapels of his shirt and adjusted him so his back was flat on the ground. She patted his shirt pockets just to make sure it wasn’t in there, then went for the pants pockets. She gasped with a small smirk as she reached into Doc’s pocket.

“Is this just ancient tech, or are you excited to see me?” she muttered to herself as her hands clasped around a cold metal tube and pulled it from his pocket. “Aha!”

It was unassuming enough, just something that looked like a gold lipstick. She quickly shoved it into the pocket of her jacket, remembering she hadn’t brought the likely unnecessary tube she was supposed to, in order to protect it. And her. Oh well. Doc had just had it in his pocket. Couldn’t be that bad. These science geeks were always trying to spend money on nonsense. 

Giving Doc one more peck on the cheek for good measure, Wynonna straightened back up and ran her fingers through her hair as she casually walked out of the bathroom and back into the bar. She slipped out the back door of the bar and walked to where she’d parked her bike a little down the street. 

Easy peasy.

She didn’t need a _team_. Bullshit. She was her own damn weapon and her own damn team. 

Firing up her bike, she briefly looked down at her phone. Technically she should go back and drop the artifact off at the lab...but she had a fresh bottle of whiskey in her saddlebag that she couldn’t wait to get into. She rolled her shoulders and turned her bike towards home.

When she got to the Homestead, she cracked open her whiskey before she’d even opened the front door. She took a long gulp as she fumbled with her keys. As she walked into the house, kicking off her boots and letting her keys fall to the floor. Wynonna dragged herself off to Waverly’s bathroom (it was the one with the best tub after all) and decided a nice long soak with her whiskey would be just the celebration she needed for the night. Without a second thought, she emptied her pockets onto the sink before stripping and letting relaxation take over.

***

“Ugh, Wynonna!” Waverly toed at the soaked towel her sister had left on the floor of her bathroom the night before. “I told you this morning to pick this up!”

She didn’t mind Wynonna using her tub, but it always meant wet towels all over her floor. She didn’t even understand how they got so wet. It was like Wynonna dragged each towel into the tub before dropping it onto the old tile floor.

Waverly started brushing her teeth, glancing back down at her watch. She was running a little late, but if she did her makeup on the way to her date she should be fine. 

“Sorry, baby girl,” was the muted response from downstairs. Waverly was sure Wynonna didn’t even know what she was yelling about. She was probably on her phone scrolling through a social media account she wasn’t supposed to have. It was forbidden for her line of work but Wynonna tended to do things the opposite of how they were supposed to be done. 

She spit into the sink and rinsed out her mouth before grabbing the lipstick tube and her eye makeup off the sink, to shove into her purse. 

“I’m leaving!” Waverly shouted, checking her hair one last time before starting down the stairs.

“Have fun with _Beth_.”

Waverly could practically hear the scoff in Wynonna’s voice.

“She’s nice,” Waverly said, going into Wynonna’s bedroom where she was half on, half off the bed and scrolling through something on her computer that was propped awkwardly up on a pillow. “Don’t be mean.”

“She looks like a bad kisser,” Wynonna mused.

Waverly winced, remembering how feather light Beth’s goodnight kiss was on their last date. She slipped on her boots and leaned down to kiss the top of Wynonna’s head.

“There’s leftovers in the fridge. Eat them please instead of ordering enough Chinese food for a high school football team,” Waverly said.

Wynonna just mumbled her acknowledgement and Waverly went back out the door to her car. At every stoplight on the way to the restaurant, she’d do a little more of her makeup in the mirror. Not that she wore much anyway, so it was fairly easy. Plus to be honest she wasn’t...completely invested in this thing with Beth. But she was giving it the good ol’ two date try. Beth was sweet if not a little odd, and their first date hadn’t been the worst. They just had nothing in common.

But Waverly wasn’t exactly swimming in dating offers so she had to give Beth a second try. At least.

She tossed her purse into the passenger seat of her Jeep and pulled out of the Homestead, heading towards the restaurant where she was meeting Beth. It was the nicest one in Purgatory, just on the edge of town. It even had an attendant in the bathroom to hand you towels, and everything.

At the stoplights, she called on her years and years of practice in high school to do her mascara and eye makeup expertly. 

When she got to the restaurant, she parked and pulled out the tube of lipstick. The finishing touch. She screwed off the top and frowned when the tube was empty. Did Wynonna use it all? Gazing into the empty tube, the gold surface beneath her thumb started to glow blue. Waverly frowned and the tube vibrated briefly, making her blush.

Had she accidentally picked up one of Wynonna’s vibrators?

She dropped the tube in her lap where it sat immobile for a moment before it morphed with tiny metallic sounds into a straight gold rod. Waverly frowned, staring down at the...thing on her lap. There was no way Wynonna would have such a complicated vibrator.

Waverly leaned a little closer to it and poked it with her finger. It vibrated again and practically jumped out of her lap, clamping itself around her wrist like some sort of complicated bracelet. At first appearance it just seemed like a single piece of gold tight on her wrist.

“What the balls,” Waverly muttered to herself, as she tried to pull the bracelet off. But there was no clasp, and it just got tighter when she pulled.

There was a knock on her window and Waverly nearly jumped out of her skin. Hand on her chest to calm her beating heart, Waverly turned to see Beth waving at her from the other side of the window, a gleeful smile on her face.

“Hi, Wavey,” Beth said, voice muted through the glass.

Waverly smiled through a cringe at the nickname, the hand in her lap still pulling at the bracelet that just kept getting tighter. “Oh, hey, Beth! One-” _Tug_. “-second!” The bracelet gave her a quick shock and she growled in frustration. “_Wynonna._

“Are you okay?” Beth asked, lifting onto her toes to try and get a glance in the car. 

Waverly gave up quickly and as soon as she let go of the bracelet, it loosened around her wrist. She grabbed her purse from the seat and stuffed her car keys in them before opening the door. As her heels landed in the gravel of the parking lot, she stumbled for a moment and had to grip her mirror to keep herself upright. Meanwhile Beth’s hands flailed uselessly in Waverly’s direction.

“Oh! Are you alright?” she said, gently putting a hand on Waverly’s elbow once she righted herself.

“Fine, thanks,” Waverly gritted, lips stretched back in a half grimace, half grin. Beth didn’t seem to notice either way and she leaned forward to kiss Waverly lightly on the lips. So lightly that it tickled more than anything.

“Come on, our reservation is for seven-thirty,” Beth said, taking Waverly’s hand and pulling her through the parking lot. When they got into the restaurant, Beth went up to the stand and Waverly took the opportunity to text Wynonna a quick picture of the bracelet.

_Waverly: Wynonna! Explain yourself!_

_Wynonna: Where’d you get that ugly ass bracelet from lol_

_Waverly: It used to look like a lipstick tube. Ring any bells?_

_Wynonna: oh shit_

_Waverly: ??????_

“Wavey!” Beth gestured from the hostess booth for Waverly to follow, a girl in a crisply starched black outfit standing there with two menus.

“Oh, sorry,” Waverly said, quickly falling in step behind Beth as they went to their table. She couldn’t help but keep glancing at her wrist every few seconds where the bracelet glittered innocently, just waiting to see if it would glow or buzz again.

They got to their seats and Beth immediately started launching into her problems from the day. Something about her brother being the typical brat that he was. Waverly was too distracted by the bracelet to really pay attention. She tapped it with her nail and it glowed blue for a half second. 

Her phone buzzed, and she glanced into her purse to see a picture of Wynonna flipping off the camera blinking back at her. It stopped buzzing and Waverly looked back up at Beth to hear the tail end of her conversation with herself.

“Anyways. If you see Tucker lurking around here behind a menu or something, don’t be alarmed. He’s harmless,” Beth said, with a playful roll of her eyes and flick of her wrist to indicate how mild of a threat her sociopath brother really was.

Waverly frowned for a moment, eyes suddenly darting around to all the tables around them for a sign of him. “Wait, what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Beth said, reaching across the table and covering Waverly’s hand in her own. Just then Waverly’s phone buzzed again and she looked down, Wynonna’s face looking back at her again.

“Sorry, I have to get this,” Waverly said apologetically, taking her phone from her bag and holding it to her chest as she stood. “It’s a-...important.”

Taking her bag with her, Waverly quickly headed down the long hall in the back to the restroom. She answered her phone just as she pushed open the bathroom door. 

“Wynonna, what- woah,” Waverly stopped in her tracks in what was apparently the bathroom foyer, completely covered in what looked like black marble from the floors to the wall, all the decor spotless gold accents. There was soft classical music playing over the speakers and a basket full of fluffy hand towels between two deep, gold sinks. There were even fresh flowers in a vase. Her eyes caught the attendant’s who looked back at her with a suspicious frown. She smiled and the attendant averted their eyes.

“Waverly, you should um...probably come home,” Wynonna said over the phone.

“What the hell is this on my wrist?” Waverly hissed into the phone as quietly as she could, but the classical music did nothing to keep her conversation from echoing off the hard bathroom surfaces.

“So uh, you know that secret technology I was scheduled to get on Monday?” Wynonna started uneasily.

Waverly set her jaw, eyes darting back to the attendant who seemed very focused on the opposite corner of the room. “Wynonna...what did you do?”

“I uh...mighta got it early. On my own and...brought it home.”

“What?!” Waverly squeaked, looking down at her wrist in panic. “This thing could be soaked in radiation. My arm is gonna get all bubbly and old looking and...and...and fall right off!”

“That sounds like the Ark of the Covenant in _Indiana Jones_, not actual effects of radiation,” Wynonna chastised. “I thought you were the sciency one.”

Waverly scoffed. “It doesn’t matter. I could be slowly dying. How do you get this thing off?”

“Just take it off!”

“I can’t! It won’t let me!”

Wynonna made muttering sounds of concentration and Waverly looked back at the attendant who wasn’t even trying to hide their staring anymore. Waverly ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. “I can’t talk about this here. I’m coming home.”

“No, I’ll meet you at the offices. One of the tech nerds is probably still there. That’s probably for the best,” Wynonna said. “Also great way to avoid a bad goodnight kiss from Beth-”

“I’ll see you soon,” Waverly cut her off and hung up on her, sliding her phone back into her bag. As she made her way back to their table, she dug in her purse for her keys. “Beth, I’m so sorry, I have to go.”

Beth’s face fell and Waverly’s guilt only got stronger. “What?”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated,”but it’s an important work thing.” She took Beth’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Beth perked up a little bit. “You mean your cool and mysterious job?”

“Just a librarian for the government, Beth,” Waverly said airily. “Nothing exciting.”

“Well I don’t know any librarians who get called in at seven-thirty on a Saturday,” Beth winked at her. “I’ll call you later.”

“Thank you,” Waverly said, giving her hand one last squeeze, pausing only to take a roll from the basket on the table before taking off. She smiled at the confused looking hostess as she took a bite of the bread roll on her way out, muttering to herself, “Fuck that’s good.”

Bread roll in her mouth, Waverly began the drive to the office in the city.

***

From the outside it looked like nothing more than an outdated, unnecessary government building. The kind of place people knew about, but didn’t know or care what was going on inside because it was just so dreadfully boring. Forgettable. The inside looked like it had last been renovated in the seventies. Wood paneling up the walls and a beige linoleum on the floor. No one could figure out what the original color might have been.

Front and center sat an ugly receptionist desk where Linda was installed during daytime hours, all grey bobbed hair and cat eye glasses with a gold chain that glittered around her neck. She seemed just as disinterested in her job as everyone else.

From what Waverly understood, it really was a government building. The people who worked under the depressing fluorescent lights and scraped their chairs across stained linoleum were accountants of some kind. Waverly had walked past them every day for almost two years now with no actual comprehension of what their jobs were. 

Tonight, it was empty, so Waverly had to walk through the dark offices, which always gave her the creeps. Her heels resounded on the linoleum and echoed even in the big room stuffed to the brim with bullpen dividers. There was a door sitting at the back of the room. It was an nondescript looking door with light, wood textured laminate covering it. On the front, a plastic sign bolted to it read “Management”.

Waverly put her hand on the ordinary looking handle and looked at the sign. There was nothing noticeable happening on the surface, but under the worn plastic sign was a camera reading Waverly’s retina, and the tarnished metal handle was actually high grade military materials, reading her trace DNA.

With a subtle click, Waverly pushed it open. The beginning of the hall looked like a normal office, but just around the corner there was another thick metal door. Waverly put her thumb on the pad and it read her fingerprint before unlocking with a small beep. 

Hidden in plain sight behind a boring, outdated office sat Canada’s most high tech government agency. An offshoot of CSIS that only dealt with the most secretive, high profile cases. 

When Wynonna came home after seven years abroad, and somehow managed to get a mysterious job that often left her with odd bruises, Waverly forced her to tell her what she was doing. Mostly because she had been convinced that she was dealing drugs. Waverly could have been worried about how easily Wynonna folded under the pressure of Waverly tickling her, but instead she decided to get a job at the CSIS too— with her sister’s help.

Wynonna was a full-blown agent. She liked to call herself a “spy” but it all felt too James Bond for Waverly. Waverly went through the same rigorous training as Wynonna and thought she’d be placed as an agent too. Months of straight physical training in hand-to-hand combat, as well as weapons training. She could pick any lock and get past any laser, so naturally she thought she was going to be put in the field like Wynonna.

But she wasn’t.

Apparently a full battery of tests indicated that Waverly’s talents were best applied as a handler, which meant her days consisted of sitting behind a computer with a headset on, carefully watching all of Wynonna’s actions that were being recorded in real time with a contact lens camera.

They said it was because she was so interested in history and languages, which made her a better asset in headquarters. Waverly was disappointed, to say the least. She had imagined herself out there kicking ass, taking names, and bagging international threats. Instead she watched as Wynonna did it.

Of course Wynonna preferred it because it meant they got to work together and Waverly stayed safe. Even though Waverly didn’t get a say in keeping Wynonna safe. But, whatever.

Waverly swung open the door and stepped into another office. Instead of outdated seventies decor, this room was slick and state of the art, all cool metal and bright white technology. A few people sat at their desks, typing up whatever report was coming through. On the left side of the office was a smaller area covered in computers and monitors, where the handlers sat. 

Wynonna sat lounging carelessly in someone’s chair, her boots up on the desk practically atop their keyboard. She had her sunglasses perched on her head, and Waverly wondered why she had them at all when it was already dark outside. Slumped in the chair, Wynonna was swiping through something on her phone when she noticed Waverly. 

“Finally!” she said, sitting up and letting her boots fall to the floor with a loud ‘_thump_’. “What took you so long?”

“I don’t drive like a maniac. Unlike _some_ people,” Waverly said pointedly. She shoved her wrist towards Wynonna. “What the balls is this?”

Wynonna frowned and looked Waverly up and down. “Why are you dressed all fancy?”

“You know I was on a date.”

“Right, Boring Beth,” Wynonna nodded in realization. “The kiss was awful, admit it.”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Waverly said, with a blush. She shook her wrist at Wynonna again. “Now come on, focus. I have this weird fucking thing on my wrist.”

“Right,” Wynonna said, looking down at the deceptively simple looking gold bracelet. She scratched her cheek and frowned up at Waverly. “It won’t come off?”

“If it did I wouldn’t be standing here,” Waverly snipped. Wynonna rolled her eyes with a grumble. “Where did this even come from?”

Wynonna tapped on her chin like she was thinking. “Well…” Waverly narrowed her eyes at Wynonna. “I just...completed an assignment early. Since when is that a bad thing?”

Waverly felt her stomach twist. “Is this the secret tech you were supposed to get _securely_ next week?” Wynonna’s silence answered all of Waverly’s questions. “Nonna!”

“It’s fine,” Wynonna said. “We have the most impressive tech nerds in all of Canada in their little nerd cave right below us.”

Waverly blushed and crossed her arms in front of her chest, hollowing her cheeks. She avoided the tech room as much as possible for one very specific reason. Well, person actually. An ex to be exact.

“Is...Rosita down there tonight?” Waverly asked with an innocent tilt of her head.

“Isn’t she...always down there?” Wynonna said. “It’ll be fine. You two broke up months ago. If you could even call it that. Do fuck buddies break up?”

“Must you be vulgar?” 

“You two went from fucking in the supply closet to...not. That’s not necessarily a breakup.”

Waverly blushed even deeper. “Shut up. Semantics don’t matter. You’re right, we’re both adults and this is work related. Surely we’ll be able to put our past aside and act like professional colleagues.”

Wynonna had clearly checked out while Waverly was giving her explanation. She was staring down at her phone again, nodding mindlessly as Waverly talked. 

“Uhuh, sure, baby girl. Now let’s go before this thing gives us both radiation poisoning,” Wynonna said, turning on her heel and starting towards the elevators.

Waverly punched her clearance code into the keypad on the elevator and it began to descend. The doors opened up to one large room with different clusters of people scattered around, working on experiments. It was a little emptier than normal, given the time, but there were still a number of people in lab coats.There was always a vague sense of chaos in there that made Waverly smile.

Wynonna immediately began towards Rosita, hunched over and peering through her goggles at something on the table. Her assistant Jeremy was beside her, their faces practically on the surface of the table.

“Hey nerds,” Wynonna called when they were a few yards away. Jeremy’s head shot up to see them approaching and Rosita just sighed.

“Hey, Earp,” she drawled out before slowly looking up, hands on her hips. Her eyes flickered over to Waverly, and she stopped mid-step when Rosita smiled and winked at her. “Waves.”

Waverly smiled back at her and tugged some hair behind her ear. “Hey, Rosie.”

“You look nice,” Rosita said, eyeing Waverly’s outfit.

“Thanks,” Waverly said, with an awkward giggle and a playful roll of her eyes. “Just...threw it on-”

“Liar,” Wynonna said flatly. Waverly kicked her foot but Wynonna appeared unaffected. “I thought you two broke up, what’s with the flirting? Or are you still fucking and I missed it?”

“_Wynonna._”

“Anyways,” Wynonna said, using the heel of her boot to pull one of the rolling stools closer so she could sit on it. “We have a bit of an...issue?”

Her head tilted at the end of her sentence, eyes squinting at Rosita.

“That’s never good,” Jeremy said, once again mere inches away from the surface of the petri dish he was examining.

Wynonna twisted the stool so she could look right at Jeremy. “What was that, geek squad?”

Waverly rolled her eyes and thrust her wrist between them, gold bracelet shining under the hanging light that was over the table. All three of them automatically leaned forward to get a better look.

“What am I looking at here?” Rosita said.

Waverly raised an eyebrow at Wynonna who scoffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So...you know that technology I was supposed to hijack next week?”

Jeremy quickly whipped his goggles off of his eyes, a look of panic on his face. “You mean the Mayan technology?”

“Sure, whatever. Anyways, I did the _totally_ responsible thing and scored it a little early,” Wynonna sped through the first part quickly. “Then Waverly found it, and whatever it is decided that it liked her.”

“Is this what it always looked like?” Rosita ducked her head to get a look at the other side of it.

“It looked like...a tube of lipstick,” Waverly sighed. “I just touched it and it glowed a little bit, then straightened out into a rod. Then sort of...jumped? And it grabbed my wrist like this.”

Rosita and Jeremy looked at each other briefly. Jeremy sounded in awe. “Sentient technology?”

“What kind of metal can transform like that?”

“Mercury?”

“No way-”

Wynonna rolled her eyes and stood up, the heavy sound of her boots hitting the ground. “Science science science. We get it, you’re smart.”

Rosita shot her a look. “We’re trying to fix your mess.”

“Cool down with the nerd speak for a second,” Wynonna said, interrupting with a shake of her head. “Can you get this off of Waverly and _then_ analyze it?”

Rosita ignored Wynonna and went to a file cabinet, putting in a code and taking out some sort of small electronic device that looked like a box and fit in the palm of her hand. 

“Take a seat, Waves,” she said, as she walked around the table. Waverly perched herself on another rolling stool as Rosita stood in front of her. Waverly’s knees bumped her thighs but Rosita didn’t seem to notice or care, holding out her hand for Waverly’s wrist. Jeremy scrambled after her, digital pad in hand as she booted up the little machine. It had a small screen on it that came to life with the push of a button and the whirring of a fan. Rosita held the device over the bracelet on Waverly’s wrist and it beeped, small numbers and symbols that Waverly couldn’t decipher popping up on it. 

Waverly leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the screen when Jeremy gasped at something that came up on his digital pad. She frowned and leaned forward a little more to get a good look at the pad in his hands.

“Wynonna, I can’t believe you obtained this without the proper precautions,” he said with a shake of his head. “The technology is so advanced that we can’t even analyze it.”

“There’s no radiation so that’s good,” Rosita mumbled, distracted.

Wynonna glared at Jeremy. “Listen, I was a little distracted by doing my job to worry about this government red tape bullshit.”

“It’s not _bullshit_, it’s safety,” Jeremy said, before wilting under Wynonna’s gaze. Rosita tentatively tugged on the bracelet and it vibrated and tightened on Waverly’s wrist.

“What the fuck,” Rosita breathed to herself. She looked up at Jeremy who looked back at her with an ashen expression. Waverly looked between the two and up at Wynonna, who looked just as confused.

“What?” Waverly asked, voice shaking a little bit. For a moment the only sound that hung in the air was the gentle beeping of the equipment around them.

“Alright, hold up, I’ll be right back,” Wynonna muttered as she strode out of the room.

Waverly looked at Rosita for a moment, trying to keep a certain level of levity in her voice. “I shouldn’t be worried, should I?”

Rosita’s face softened from analytical to friend again and she shook her head. “Nah, Waves, you really think we don’t always have this under control?”

“I guess,” Waverly muttered just as Wynonna came barging back in, this time with large bolt cutters in her hand. “What the hell, Wynonna?”

“Stand back, nerds,” she said as she walked right up to Waverly and put the bracelet between the blades. “Brains versus brawn.”

Rosita moved to stop her. “Wynonna, don’t-!”

It was too late. Wynonna used her whole weight on the bolt cutters, but instead of the bracelet giving way under the tool, it vibrated violently. 

_”Holy-”_ Wynonna quickly dropped the bolt cutters, jumping away from them and the bracelet as the tool clattered to the ground. “That motherfucker shocked me!”

Rosita took a deep breath and straightened back up. “We have to call Dolls.”

Wynonna groaned, head falling dramatically on the metal table as the bracelet loosened around Waverly’s wrist. She sighed and looked down at the unassuming piece of jewelry contrasting against her skin. What a mess.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!
> 
> Welcome to chapter two of this crazy ride. A certain red head will be making an appearance in this one so...keep an eye out for that...
> 
> Oh and Happy Halloween, the best holiday in the world. 
> 
> As always, special thanks to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo).

“So let me get this straight,” Dolls said, palms flat on his desk as he looked down at it.

Waverly and Wynonna were sitting across from him. Waverly had never been to the principal’s office in high school but she imagined this is what it felt like. There was a vein in Doll’s next that was popping a little more than usual and his grip was so tight on the desk Waverly was surprised the wood wasn’t splintering under his finger tips.

He let out a harsh breath through his nose like a bull getting ready to charge before he looked up at Wynonna.

“You went against strict orders in obtaining this highly dangerous piece of technology.”

It wasn’t a question. Even though Waverly knew she wasn’t the one in trouble, she couldn’t help but feel the nerves alight in her belly.

“Dolls, that’s not _exactly_ what happened,” Wynonna said so casually that Waverly wondered how she did it.

“Then enlighten me,” Dolls said.

Wynonna and Waverly looked at each other briefly. Wynonna leaned forward in her chair a little bit, elbows on her knees as she gestured. “I...got a tip that the target would be somewhere with the technology where his guard would be down and...I took _initiative_ to obtain it. Problem free, I might add.”

“Yeah, problem free until it attached itself to Waverly,” Dolls pointed out. “The fact that you just went out on your own to get this...you’re lucky it wasn’t a trap.”

“I thought-”

“No, you didn’t think,” Dolls interrupted, eyes hard as they bored into Wynonna. She shrunk a little and Waverly resisted reaching out to comfort her. “You didn’t think and now we have about twenty-four hours to figure out how to secure this thing. Anyone could be tracing it now that it’s activated.”

“I get it, I’m sorry,” Wynonna mumbled, arms crossed over her chest as she rolled her eyes. “I’ll do what I have to do to make sure this is secure and gets where it needs to go.”

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re grounded,” Dolls said. He straightened up, tight shirt straining against his muscles as he reached for a folder on his desk. 

_“What?”_ Wynonna said with narrow eyes. “You can’t _ground_ me-”

“I just did, Earp,” he said. The phone on his desk rang, shrill and loud in the room. They all looked at it confused for a moment before Dolls quickly picked it up. He held the receiver tight against his ear. “Agent Dolls. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Understood. We’ll wait for further instructions.”

He hung up the phone and let out a deep, almost uncharacteristic groan. 

“I feel bad for witnessing what was clearly a very personal and emotional call,” Wynonna deadpanned. 

Dolls just glared at her. “The FBI is getting involved. They know the tech has been activated, and they’re sending an agent to help get it over to a contact they have in Europe to get this sorted out.”

Wynonna scowled. “The FBI? Why?”

“It’s my job to take assignments, not question them. Especially when they’re from the top,” Dolls said.

“Ugh, Lucado got involved? Makes sense. That bitch hates my guts-”

“This isn’t about you, Earp,” Dolls said. “Your actions have put this agency, your sister, and the entire world at risk. And now we have to clean up the mess.”

“Fine, well, I’ll go with whatever FBI special agent douchebag they send,” Wynonna said, kicking her legs out in front of her. “Now how do we get this thing off of Waverly? Chop her hand off or what?”

“Hey!” Waverly protested, finally finding her voice.

Dolls sighed. “Wynonna. You’re grounded. Waverly, you need to get ready to travel. You can’t leave the facility but now that Wynonna has nothing to do, maybe she can go pack a bag for you. You’ll be wheels up at 0800 hours Monday.”

Waverly sat there in shock, eyes wide as she stared at Dolls. “I-...sorry?”

Dolls blinked back at her. “You’re going out in the field, Earp,” he said with a stiff twitch of his lips. Waverly wasn’t sure if he was trying to smile and if he was, was he trying to be supportive? Sarcastic? Waverly just stared back. “You have tomorrow to brush up on your training and get ready to travel.”

“To _Europe_?” Waverly said breathlessly. Her mind was instantly filled with images of herself on a Vespa, drinking wine in a little cafe, traveling through the museums. The cobblestone roads, the history, the culture. She was sure her eyes looked dreamy, which was confirmed when Wynonna pinched her arm. “Ow!”

“Dolls, Waverly is a desk jockey - no offense, baby girl,” Wynonna said as Waverly shot her a look. That little seed of doubt in her chest shook and threatened to grow under her sister’s comments. 

Dolls picked up the file in front of him again and held it up with a grin. “Waverly graduated top of her class and passed all of her training with flying colors. She should have been a field agent to begin with, and I have no worries about her being able to handle this.”

He threw the file down in front of them and Waverly saw “Earp, Waverly” in a peeling label on the edge of it.

Wynonna grabbed for it, opening it up to the first page that had Waverly’s picture on it and some bullet pointed stats. Waverly felt her chest puff with a sense of achievment as she smiled up at Dolls. He looked back at her with a look that could only be described as pride.

“You’re both dismissed,” he said, looking back at Wynonna with brows raised.

Wynonna sputtered, but still stood up and headed out of the room, Waverly close behind. As soon as they were out of the room, Wynonna spun around and grabbed for Waverly’s wrist.

“Alright, how are we gonna get this off,” Wynonna said, pulling her wrist close to her face.

“Why?” Waverly said, pulling her wrist from her sister’s grasp and holding it against her chest. “I can’t get it off.”

“Well you have to because you’re not going anywhere,” Wynonna said. She went to reach for her wrist again and Waverly stepped just out of reach. 

“I am,” she said firmly. “I’m going on this mission.”

Wynonna’s voice softened and she put her hands on Waverly’s shoulders. “Baby girl, it’s too dangerous. And with some rando. No way.”

“We don’t have a choice, Wynonna,” Waverly said, shaking Wynonna’s hands off of her. “Even if we could get the bracelet off, I’d still go. This is my _chance_ to prove that I can be a field agent.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Wynonna repeated. 

“You do it,” Waverly crossed her arms over her chest, cocking her hip to the side as she stared at Wynonna with a hard look. She was tired of being bossed around and just living behind the computer screen. She didn’t know if she’d ever get this chance again and she wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers. “If you can do it, I can do it.”

“But Waverly, I’m-”

“You’re _what_?” Waverly asked as anger made her voice shake. “You’re the reason I have to do this to begin with. You’re the one that messed up this mission. Because you were being reckless.”

Waverly regretted the words as she watched a ripple of shame move across Wynonna’s face. But her face hardened again and Wynonna poked her hard in the stomach, causing her to bend away from it and grunt in surprise.

“Fine. Then fucking prove you can handle it out there,” Wynonna said. “Gym. Now.”

Waverly let out a humorless laugh. “I can’t. I don’t have any clothes here.”

“Then let’s go back to the Homestead.”

“I can’t leave,” Waverly smirked. “You have to go get all my clothes for me.”

Wynonna rolled her eyes and let out a deep groan. She held her fists at her sides and stomped out like a toddler. “Fine! I’ll be back in the morning!”

***

_Waverly: CHRISSY YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED_

_Chrissy: Did you sleep with Beth? Was it weird? Did you wake up and she was staring at you? Cutting off a piece of your hair?_

_Waverly: What? No. Come into work. _

_Chrissy: Bitch. It’s Sunday morning._

_Waverly: It’s good, I promise. I just can’t tell you over text._

_Chrissy: You’re lucky I love you. Be there soon._

***

_”Bitch,”_ Chrissy said in awe, eyes wide and intrigued. 

Waverly smiled over her bowl of oatmeal that Chrissy brought her from their usual breakfast spot down the street. She had slept as well as she could in the bunks reserved for agents needing rest when running long missions. The lumpy public mattress freaked her out, and then the adrenaline refused to settle in her body. 

“I can’t believe you get to be a field agent,” Chrissy sighed. 

“I know,” Waverly practically squealed into her bowl. “Like, I know it’s super dangerous and all that, but I’ve been waiting for this.”

“I’m guessing Wynonna isn’t happy,” Chrissy said with a raise of her eyebrow. 

Waverly scoffed, shoulders falling. “Yeah, she’s really not. But it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have a choice.”

“She just worries about you,” Chrissy said. “You’re all she’s got.”

“And she’s all I got, but you don’t see me going around and forcing her to stay in a bubble,” Waverly mumbled. 

Chrissy smiled. “You got dealt that little sister card. It’s almost the same as my only child card.”

Waverly just grumbled, watching as Wynonna walked through the door with a duffle that definitely looked overstuffed. When she got up to Waverly’s desk, she tossed the bag on the floor.

“Here,” she said. “I didn’t pack only underwear like you very specifically requested. Even though it’s how I pack.”

“Thank you, Wynonna,” Waverly said, as she looked dubiously down at the lumpy bag.

“Now come on, we gotta train,” Wynonna said before she finally acknowledged Chrissy, nodding at her. “Nedley.”

Waverly rolled her eyes as Wynonna walked away towards the locker rooms. Chrissy shook her head and kicked Waverly’s foot. 

“She loves you.”

“She’s annoying,” Waverly said. She felt the negativity deflate in her chest and she shook her head, setting her oatmeal aside. “But I love her too.”

“I’ll be here being a _boring_ desk agent,” Chrissy said with a wink. “Do I at least get to be your handler?”

Waverly’s eyes got wide and she leaned forward, covering Chrissy’s hands with her own. “I would _love_ that.”

“Do you think Dolls would let us?”

“We can ask.”

The two squealed like excited school girls.

***

“_Mrow._”

Calamity’s tail flickered with annoyance as Nicole’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. She sat on Nicole’s chest, staring down at her with narrowed eyes. Nicole’s own bleary eyes blinked open as she reached for the offending device.

She swiped open the call and put it to her ear as she wiped sleep from her eyes. 

“Agent Haught.”

“Hey Haught, you have to be on a plane in three hours,” the voice from the other line came. Nicole cleared her throat to get some of the scratchiness away. 

“Alright, Shapiro,” Nicole said. “Do I get to know where I’m going this time.”

“Oh yeah. Canada. Then France,” she said with a hint of glee behind her voice. “And I’m going to Canada with you. Some kind of cross border inter-department mission to escort an Earp.”

“Earp?” Nicole said mostly to herself. She remembered an Earp from a work conference a few years prior. Pretty and smart in a way that made Nicole think about her more often than she cared to think about a woman she’d only met once. Then there was her sister, known to be the reckless agent, even across the border.

“Yeah. It’ll be fun. I’ll meet you at the airport in an hour,” Shapiro said before hanging up.

Nicole groaned and let the phone slide from its place against her ear and nestle itself in her pillow.

“Alright CJ.” Nicole scratched the cat behind the ear and it turned its head into her hand, entire weight on it as she started purring. Nicole indulged the cat (and herself) for another few minutes before nudging her off her chest so that she could get up. Her bed felt far too large for only one person and she looked back at it, the other side still basically made. She had gotten in the habit of sleeping on one side and it seemed like something she couldn’t break. It was fine, this would pass. At least that’s what people kept telling her.

Nicole rubbed her chest, the phantom ache of an old injury flaring up again. It usually did at times like this. When she just wanted to pull someone into her arms and cradle them there, breathing them in, only to be met with an empty bed.

It was fine.

This too will pass, she told herself. At least she kept hoping it would. Until then she would bury herself in work and go wherever they decided they needed her. At least that way she didn’t _feel_ alone.

***

Waverly bounced on her toes, feeling the give of the padding under her. The yellow fluorescent light of the gym felt like it was glaring off of the sweat running down her face. She blew a harsh breath, trying to get a strand of hair out of her face to no avail, as it clung to her sweat soaked skin.

“Hold on, time out,” Waverly said, lowering her fists from in front of her face.

Wynonna grinned and sent a punch straight towards her face. Waverly quickly brought her arms up, stepping back to avoid the hit. “Hey!”

“No times out in the real world, baby girl,” Wynonna huffed before twisting her body to send a sidekick directly into Waverly’s kidney.

Waverly didn’t waste any time, grabbing Wynonna’s ankle and pushing it up over her head to flip Wynonna onto her back. Wynonna’s other leg came around and swept out Waverly’s feet, sending her crashing to the ground with a grunt. Wynonna was up and on top of Waverly in an instant, thighs bracketing her hips to hold her down. Waverly moved to throw Wynonna off of her but instead she used her momentum to flip Waverly so that Wynonna had her back on the ground and was lying on top of her, back against her front, so that Wynonna could get her in a chokehold.

“Say uncle,” Wynonna said, as Waverly tried fruitlessly to wiggle free. Wynonna’s grip on Waverly tightened and her vision narrowed and darkened. “Say it.”

“Never,” Waverly breathed, hands grabbing at Wynonna’s arm. As soon as her wrist came into contact with Wynonna’s skin, the bracelet vibrated and Wynonna’s arm jerked away from Waverly.

“Ow! What the _fuck_?” Wynonna said, as Waverly scrambled back to her feet with a triumphant grin.

Wynonna pulled back, jumping back to her feet and going to hit Waverly. Waverly blocked Wynonna’s hit with the side of her hand and the bracelet shocked her again.

“Christ! Are you not feeling that?” Wynonna said, shaking out her arm.

“Nope,” Waverly said with a smug grin.

“Well it’s not fair! You have some kinda...alien technology!” Wynonna complained, arms falling limp at her sides. 

Waverly put her fists up in front of her face, bouncing from foot to foot. “Come on.”

“No way,” Wynonna said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She glanced at the clock and pulled the hair tie out of her hair, damp brown locks falling around her face. “Dolls told me to have you back to the briefing room in an hour anyways. And you have to shower.”

“Excuses excuses,” Waverly said as she dropped her hands. She was feeling cocky from Wynonna backing off and she put her hands on her hips. “You just know you can’t beat me.”

“I could if it was a fair fight,” Wynonna argued as she walked up to Waverly. She gave her a playful slap on the ass. “Come on, get to the showers before Dolls yells at me again.”

“Fine. Fine,” Waverly said as she rolled her eyes and headed towards the showers.

***

The warm spray of the shower soothed Waverly’s already achy muscles as she rinsed out her hair. Maybe she wasn’t as in shape as she thought she was. But she quickly banished the thought from her mind. Just because she wasn’t used to sparring, didn’t mean she couldn’t do it. 

She _could_. 

And she would.

She turned the water a little hotter, steam soon filling the small shower stall as the water splashed against the blue tiles. The sound of the door to the locker room echoed through the room and Waverly tried to get a good look through the gap in the curtain to see who it was. Chrissy was walking quickly towards her and ripped open the shower curtain when she got to Waverly’s shower.

Waverly yelped in surprise, blushing as she threw an arm across her chest in an attempt to preserve her modesty. “Chrissy!”

“Your partner just got here,” Chrissy said, face unreadable. 

“Okay?” Waverly tried to pull the curtain back closed but Chrissy had an iron grip on it.

“You’ll never guess who it is,” Chrissy whispered, face finally cracking into a sly smile. “Remember Haught?”

Waverly felt the blood drain from her face. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Chrissy wiggled her eyebrows. “Have you talked to her since-”

“No!” Waverly said as she twisted the water knob angrily until the water shut off. “Why would I even try after she was such a jerk?”

Two years ago at a conference, Nicole had flirted with Waverly at the hotel bar. Waverly had been captivated. Nicole was tall and beautiful and oh so charming with the way she would smile at Waverly over her whiskey glass, brown eyes open and attentive. Plus Nicole was well known, even across the border, as one of the best agents around. She was close to legendary status as far as the missions she had pulled off. And that was only the ones they were allowed to know about. 

Waverly had preened under the attention, and three drinks in she had convinced herself she would let Nicole take her back to her hotel room if she asked. They sat at the bar, heads bent close as they talked about something pointless while really they were looking at each other’s lips like they were the first sign of water in a desert. 

There was something about Nicole...maybe it was how charming she was. Or how it felt like the rest of the room melted away when she looked at her. Maybe it was how Nicole was giving her this undivided attention that...quite frankly, Waverly wasn’t used to. And you didn’t go through high school as the head cheerleader _not_ liking attention. She could dive into the specifics, about how her father hardly ever spoke to her when she was a kid and when he did it was usually to yell or grab her in a way that would leave bruises later. 

But that was for a different time. A time when the FBI’s star agent wasn’t flirting with her. Their bodies had turned, Waverly’s knees bracketed by Nicole’s thighs in a way that made her want to run her hands up her legs to feel those firm thighs under her touch. Waverly eyed Nicole’s dimples, nearly falling in them as she leaned close, lips begging to taste Nicole’s, when there was a throat clearing behind her. 

Nicole sobered immediately, sitting straight up in her chair as she looked over Waverly’s shoulder. Standing behind her was a tall, beautiful woman with dark skin and expensive looking clothes. Nicole’s girlfriend, it turned out.

Waverly was left feeling dirty and used and still kind of turned on in the most frustrating way. When she went back to her hotel room that night, she let her shaky hand feel just how worked up Nicole had gotten her. Her lungs burned with shame when Nicole’s name slipped through her blasphemous lips. When her hand came away wet and sticky she cursed her body for reacting to someone that was clearly a player. Waverly probably wasn’t the first woman Nicole had tried to trick that way just during this conference alone. 

Waverly never forgot.

“Because she’s a jerk but she’s hot,” Chrissy said.

Waverly scoffed as she grabbed for her towel from the hanger just outside of the shower. She twisted her hair in the towel to soak up the moisture, no longer concerned with modesty as anger and residual embarrassment from her first encounter with Nicole tinted her skin red. She wrapped the towel around her, tucking it so it stayed up.

“That doesn’t mean she’s not irresponsible,” Waverly said as she walked out of the shower stall, flip flops hitting her feet with a wet _smack_ on every step. “And cocky.”

She started towards her locker and Chrissy followed after her.

“I can’t believe she’s the agent on this,” Waverly groaned. “She flirted with me at a _work_ conference. Not only that, but her girlfriend was there too! She’s obviously unprofessional.”

“She’s supposed to be the best. _And_ hot!” Chrissy repeated. “And you get to go to _Europe_ with her.”

“It’s not like it’s going to be _romantic_ or anything,” Waverly said. “We’re going over, getting this thing off, and coming back. Easy. Nothing long or romantic or anything.”

Chrissy smiled. “I hear partners always hook up on these missions.”

“Well not this time,” Waverly said pointedly. “Too bad for her.” They got to Waverly’s locker and she spun open the combination lock with practiced ease. “I just wish they hadn’t sent _her_. That...egotistical...irresponsible...cocky-”

“Don’t forget flirty,” came Nicole’s voice as she rounded a line of lockers that blocked them from the front entrance. 

Waverly felt her cheeks tint and she unconsciously tightened the towel around her body.

Nicole somehow looked even better than she had when she’d met her two years ago. Long red hair was now short and brushing along the same devastating jawline Waverly remembered so well. She had on tight jeans and a black button up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, the muscles of her forearms practically flexing as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against a nearby locker. Her lips were tilted in a cocky grin and Waverly got the hint of dimples on her cheeks. 

“Ah. Agent Haught,” Waverly said, straightening up and trying to pretend that they hadn’t just been talking about her moments before. “Nice to meet you again.”

“You know, when I saw my partner was going to be a W. Earp, I was hoping it was going to be you,” Nicole said, smile widening. “So, lucky me.”

“You got here quickly,” Waverly said.

Nicole pushed herself off of the locker and Waverly just watched helplessly as Nicole walked slowly towards her. 

“Yeah, well, FBI’s got some fast planes,” Nicole said, eyes darting down Waverly’s towel clad body.

“If you don’t mind, I was trying to change,” Waverly said.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all. But I have a feeling you do,” Nicole smirked as she walked closer, not stopping until she was less than a foot from her. Waverly felt her breath catch in her throat, chest tight as she got the slightest scent of vanilla from Nicole. “I’ll be out of your hair in a second, Earp. I just wanted to get a quick look at this-”

Nicole’s long fingers lightly touched just below Waverly’s elbow, drifting feather light down her arm until her fingers caught on the bracelet on Waverly’s wrist. It sent goosebumps all over Waverly’s body, the harsh material of the towel suddenly feeling too itchy. She could hardly breathe, the vanilla scent practically choking her. 

Dimples popped, Nicole’s wide smile making Waverly blush before brown eyes went down to her wrist. Nicole delicately lifted her wrist and brought it close to her face, examining it for a moment before her eyes caught Waverly’s again.

“So this is the reason for our mission?” Nicole asked.

“Yep,” Waverly cursed herself for the waver in her voice. “Be careful, it shocks people when it’s threatened.”

The both looked down at the bracelet as if expecting some kind of display, but no matter how hard Waverly tried to will it, the bracelet wasn’t shocking anyone.

“Well good thing it seems to like me then,” Nicole said. “Question is, does the tech allow some sort of AI? Or can it read your emotions and tell that you don’t care I’m touching you?”

Waverly jerked her hand away, eyes blazing and cheeks glowing. Nicole’s smile brightened and Waverly’s jaw tightened. “I look forward to a very professional relationship on the duration of our mission.”

Nicole chuckled and nodded her head, taking a step back and stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “But what about after?”

“As long as we remain colleagues,” Waverly clarified, suddenly feeling very very naked. 

“We’ll see about that, Earp,” Nicole winked at Waverly before spinning on her heels towards the door. “By the way, they wanted me to grab you. Briefing is in fifteen minutes.” 

They watched as Nicole walked out the door. As soon as the door clicked closed, Chrissy let out a long, low whistle. 

“Wow.”

“No, Chrissy,” Waverly said as she buried her still blushing face in her locker as she pretended to look for the clothes right in front of her. 

“She wants you bad,” Chrissy said with a small snort of a laugh. “Holy shit. How did you not jump her right there?”

“I’m not interested,” Waverly gritted out, pulling her shirt out of her locker and awkwardly pulling it over her head, towel still tied around her chest. It was like Nicole was specially designed to make Waverly’s life hell. Every little grin, every little tilt of her head, was just as aggravating as the last. She looked down at the bracelet on her wrist and lamented how her once in a lifetime adventure had just soured completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been reading! I'm having a fun time writing it, so it's nice there are some folx who are enjoying reading it too. :D
> 
> As always, thank you you [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being an awesome beta.

Waverly quickly got dressed and did her hair into a braid so it didn’t look as messy as she felt. Now, Chrissy was walking beside her as they navigated the halls towards the briefing room. 

“I’m just saying, don’t close yourself off to the opportunity,” Chrissy sighed, clearly too concerned about Waverly’s love life. She had always been Waverly’s biggest cheerleader and it was endearing, until it wasn’t. Though Waverly had to consider whether the reason it might be losing its charm was because there was some truth in it. 

“I have the feeling I’m going to be too preoccupied to even think about sleeping with my douchey partner,” Waverly said, quickly looking over her shoulder to make sure no one overheard. “And that’s just fine with me.”

Waverly pushed the door to the briefing room open, and took in the space. It was a long, fairly normal conference room except for one wall that was entirely touch screens that were used for the briefings. There was a long, heavy wooden table in the middle with plush chairs on either side. The two chairs at the top of the table were always for the agents running the briefing, and the field agents would sit in the next closest chair on the side with their handlers beside them. It was an unspoken hierarchy that was always observed. Unless Wynonna decided to spread across two chairs, like she usually did.

Nicole was already sitting at the table, one leg over the armrest of her chair as she flipped through something on her phone. Beside her was a woman with sharp features, blonde hair pushed back into a tight bun and a serious look on her face. As soon as her eyes focused on Waverly, she smirked, and Waverly quickly looked away.

“Who is that?” Waverly whispered to Chrissy as they rounded the far part of the table to get to the other side.

“Eliza Shapiro. Used to be the FBI’s top agent until she got injured. Now she’s stuck at the desk,” Chrissy whispered back. That was one thing Waverly could say, Chrissy was the most reliable source of gossip.

Out of habit, Waverly went for her usual seat to the right of the field agent’s chair, but Chrissy cleared her throat and she remembered. She was in the first seat this time. She pulled her lips between her teeth to keep the excited smile from appearing, as she carefully sat in the first seat closest to the top of the table. She sank into the seat, hands smoothing along the tops of the armrests as she finally let herself grin. Maybe she was being silly, but this chair was definitely softer than the handler’s chair.

She looked up and caught brown eyes looking at her across the table, smile automatically falling. Nicole winked at her and a blush lit hot under Waverly’s collar. Thankfully, the door opened, and Dolls and Lucado walked in just then.

Lucado was dressed in a crisp suit that looked made to intimidate, her hair back and out of the way as she dropped the files she was carrying on the desk. Chrissy jumped at the sound and Shapiro’s eyes shot over to her. Waverly watched as she checked Chrissy out and she sat up a little bit straighter, bending forward to put her elbows on the table. Waverly rolled her eyes to herself and looked back at Lucado. At least Chrissy was letting herself have some fun. Maybe that would keep her off of Waverly’s back.

“Alright, everyone, looks like we have a bit of a mess to clean up,” Lucado said. She pressed a hidden button on the table and a map showed up on the giant screen behind her. “Let’s get started.”

Waverly felt the excited energy coursing through her veins about being in her first briefing as an _agent_. Not just a handler. She was going to be the one jetting off to whatever location they were sending them, and the one who got to have an alias. Maybe she would be a sophisticated French woman on a business trip. Or a British woman on holiday.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Nicole said. “I have a quick question. I guess I’m just wondering what Agent Earp is doing here, since I already have a handler.”

Waverly’s ears burned and she turned to look at Nicole who was smirking at her. She could tell she was trying to get a rise out of her, and she hated that it was working.

“Can we be professional please?” Waverly said stiffly. 

“I’m just voicing my concerns,” Nicole said.

“I see we’re already off to a great start,” Lucado said, giving them both a pointed look. “Now, at exactly 0600 hours tomorrow, you will be on a plane to France.” Behind her on the map, France became highlighted and zoomed in so that it took up the whole screen. It shifted to a satellite map where they could see all the details of the land from above. “We have a contact at the Louvre, a Doctor Bossier, who is an expert on Ancient technology. Specifically Ancient Mayan technology. He’ll be able to help us get this off and secure it before anyone else gets keen on it being activated.”

“Because if an enemy of the free world _does_ find out its been activated...we’re all in trouble,” Dolls said ominously.

Waverly clutched her pen tightly, a mixture of anxiety and excitement turning her stomach. She looked at the bracelet on her arm, so innocent and unassuming looking and yet so dangerous. She licked her lips and looked back at Dolls just as a picture of Doctor Bossier popped up on the screen. He seemed tall and lanky, thick glasses shoved onto a round face with red cheeks, and brown hair dotting his balding head.

“It should be simple. You’ll be in and out in less than twenty-four hours,” Dolls said as the map popped up again and a red dot appeared on the screen. “This is where the rendezvous will be.”

Nicole slapped her palms on the top of the table. “Great! Are we done here? Seems pretty straightforward,” she stood up, hands still on the table as she leaned forward a little bit, looking at Waverly. “If y'all don’t mind, I’d like to talk to my new _partner_ for a moment.”

Waverly glared at her. A hint of a drawl was at the edges of Nicole’s voice and it made her traitorous skin warm. 

Dolls crossed his arms over his chest and Lucado sighed. 

“Yes, we’re done,” she said. “I don’t have to tell you how it’s pertinent that this goes off without a hitch, and that no one finds out this ever happened. This is highly classified.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Nicole and Waverly said at the same time.

“Great,” Dolls said as the screen turned off. “Then you’re dismissed.”

“Thank you,” Waverly smiled at Dolls and Lucado as she gathered herself and stood up. She squinted and waved her hand in front of her as she tried to come off casually. “Are we going to have...aliases or anything? For protection?”

Dolls looked at her blankly. “You’re going to be in and out so quickly it won’t even matter. Dismissed.”

Waverly couldn’t keep the blush off her face as she quickly walked out of the room, Chrissy behind her. They got into the hall and ran into Nicole and Shapiro who were both standing there looking far too smug. It felt a bit like meeting up with the school bullies in the hall after class but Waverly just set her jaw and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Can we help you?” Waverly said. 

“I’m Shapiro,” the blonde said, holding her hand out for Waverly to take. She looked at it suspiciously for a moment before shaking it, but it was clear Shapiro wasn’t interested in Waverly at all. Her eyes were on Chrissy the whole time and she held her hand out to her after dropping Waverly’s. “And you are?”

“Nedley. Chrissy,” she said with a wide smile. “Pleasure.”

Shapiro’s eyes sparkled as she dropped Chrissy’s hand, and Waverly rolled her eyes. 

“So, Waverly, wanna hit the range?” Nicole asked.

“Why?”

“I just want to make sure I can trust you in a tight situation.”

Waverly scoffed. “For your information, I have a sharpshooter medal. I just requalified this year.”

Nicole’s eyebrows raised, impressed for a moment as she nodded. “Well that’s pretty good, little sure shot. Wanna go anyways? Then you can make sure _I’m_ trustworthy.”

“Fine,” Waverly said without thinking. “I should practice anyways.”

“Awesome, meet you there?” Nicole said with a wide grin that Waverly hated to admit was very attractive with the way her dimples popped and eyes shone. She remembered how it felt to sit close to her in that stupid bar and to have her full attention. Nicole Haught was too charming for her own good.

“Sure,” Waverly shrugged a single shoulder in an attempt to show disinterest, and watched as Shapiro and Nicole walked away and turned a corner. 

As soon as they disappeared, Chrissy’s hand shot out and grabbed Waverly’s arm in a painful grip.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “They’re both so hot.”

“You’re straight!” Waverly said, trying to brush away Chrissy’s hand.

“Sexuality is a spectrum,” Chrissy said dismissively as she stepped in front of Waverly to take her in. “Okay...yeah this outfit’ll be fine for your range date. Cute. Understated-”

“It’s not a _date_. She’s my partner,” Waverly said. “Lest we forget when she flirted with me while she still had a girlfriend.”

Chrissy sighed. “Everyone has their flaws, and hers obviously aren’t on her face. Now come on.”

Chrissy looped her arm through Waverly’s and lead her down the hall towards the range.

***

Waverly lay prone at the fifty yard line, the cool concrete of the range surface beneath her. She could feel the gentle breeze of the outdoor air against her face and adjusted her aim. The heavy weight of the stock on her shoulder steadied her as she took a deep breath in, then slowly out. She set her front sight on the target, and her finger tensed against the trigger. With a slow, steady pull, she fired.

The heavy gun kicked back and the slight sting against her shoulder made her smile. And her smile only got wider when she pulled her glasses on top of her head and saw a clear hole in the middle of the target.

“Bullseye,” she said as she took off her ear protection and let them hang around her neck. She stood up from the ground, letting the rifle hang in its sling, hands on her hips as she looked over at Nicole who just nodded, looking at least somewhat impressed. Waverly was surprised she was able to shoot at all with Nicole in tight black tactical pants and a sleeveless shirt over her bulletproof vest, a bright pink bra apparent underneath. She had a black FBI emblazoned baseball cap turned backwards on her head and protective earmuffs over her head. 

Waverly didn’t want to be attracted to her, but she wasn’t blind.

They had the whole gun range to themselves which was a blessing and a curse. Less to be distracted by, but more one on one time with Nicole.

“Not bad, Earp,” Nicole said as she slid her safety goggles over her head and pulled her Glock 19 out of its holster on her hip. “Eyes and ears,” she said casually, and Waverly scrambled to comply as without even looking at the target, Nicole aimed downrange and pulled the trigger. Waverly followed the line of her well cut arms and looked over to see the middle of the target shot out.

She hated how stupidly attractive that was. Frowning, she looked back over at Nicole who had a cocky smirk on her face as she holstered her gun with a confidence born of familiarity and extensive amounts of training. 

“Impressed?” Nicole asked with a tilt of her head. 

Waverly just shrugged. “To quote Shania Twain-”

Nicole tilted her head back in a laugh. “Come on, Waverly, you can’t pretend you’re not the _least_ bit impressed.” Waverly just raised an eyebrow at her. Nicole rolled her eyes and pulled her gun back out. “Fine, how about this?”

She turned so that her back was facing the target, looked over her shoulder once and then turned back. Nicole set the gun on her shoulder and pulled the trigger. Waverly looked at the target and sure enough, there was a perfect hole right next to the first one. Nicole turned around, frowning as she looked at the hit and nodded. 

“Not bad, huh?” Nicole asked. Waverly just shrugged again and Nicole holstered her weapon with a smirk. “Come _on_, you have to admit that was cool.”

“Ugh, you Americans are so cocky,” Waverly said. “It’s not like you-...you-...saved the Declaration of Independence!” 

Nicole smirked. “What if I told you I had?”

Waverly scoffed. “Yeah right.”

“Ever heard of _National Treasure_?” Nicole shrugged. “I’m just saying they had to get the story from somewhere.

“Nico-...no. _No._ You are not implying that that movie is based off of you,” Waverly said with a serious frown. 

“I’m not _not_ implying it.”

“That would be impossible. You would have been...what? Thirteen?” Waverly grinned, loving that she had found the loophole in Nicole’s teasing.

Nicole wiggled her eyebrows. “So you know how old I am?” She squinted and tilted her head. “Though I guess I should be more concerned that you know what year that movie came out.”

Waverly crossed her arms in front of her chest. “It was...a good movie. There was history and-...yes, it was false history. But I liked to watch it.”

“Once a nerd always a nerd, huh?” Nicole said. “That’s cute, Earp.”

Waverly blushed and bit the inside of her cheek. “So tell me then, have you saved the Declaration of Independence?”

Nicole looked down at her shoes and took a step forward so her boots almost brushed the tips of Waverly’s shoes. She looked up at Waverly through her lashes for a moment and Waverly felt like her throat was slowly closing, heat inching up her neck from the collar of her shirt. Nicole wiggled her eyebrows and smirked. “That’s classified.”

With one sure wink, Nicole turned the bill of her hat back to the front and started to walk away, leaving Waverly blinking at the blank spot that Nicole once occupied.

“Hey!” Waverly took off her safety glasses and hung them in the front of her shirt. The range assistants were already running out to pack up her AR15 so Waverly handed it off and jogged to catch up to Nicole. “So what? I’ve satisfied your requirements for a partner then?” Nicole smirked and Waverly blushed before correcting herself. “A _working_ partner?”

“I guess I trust you with a gun, but you should probably leave that shit to me,” Nicole said, tipping the bill of her hat up a little bit. She turned to walk backwards in front of Waverly, who frowned. “Wanna get dinner? Together?”

Waverly blushed and crossed her arms as she walked. “What about your girlfriend?”

Nicole’s face got serious for a moment before it was gone. “Wife.”

“What?”

“I assume you’re talking about Shae? Who you met...briefly,” Nicole asked, before turning back around to walk side by side with Waverly. “We got married.”

“Oh,” Waverly wondered why the news felt like a kick to the gut. “_Wife_ then.”

“We’re not together anymore,” Nicole said dismissively, waving a hand like she just told Waverly she wasn’t a fan of the weather. “So safe to say she wouldn’t care if we got dinner or not.”

Waverly stayed silent, curious questions stuck on the end of her tongue. She wished she had some water to help swallow them back down, afraid they would jump out if she opened her mouth. Chrissy didn’t even seem to know Nicole had broken up with her...wife, and Chrissy was their best gossip source. It would be rude to ask what happened when she barely knew Nicole, even if she so desperately wanted to know. The guilt weighed heavily on her stomach as she wondered if it was her fault, or at least partially so. Though she figured Shae had caught Nicole flirting with many women in the time they were together. Waverly had to keep reminding herself that she wasn’t special. She had just been convenient at the time.

They got to the locker room and Nicole followed Waverly in, leaning against the locker next to hers like they were in high school again. That ever present smirk was still there, and Waverly opened her locker.

“I’m not that hungry,” her traitorous stomach growled and she cursed herself as she put her glasses and ear protection into her locker.

Nicole chuckled. “Come on. It’ll be fun. We can get dinner, have a couple of drinks...spend the night...getting to know each other.”

The low timbre to Nicole’s voice warmed Waverly’s skin, sinking beneath the surface and raising goosebumps along it. She could hear the suggestion in her voice and felt her body encouraging her to go along with it. She wanted to ask questions about her wife...ex-wife? She wanted to know what made Nicole so cocky, and wanted to know if it worked on other girls or just Waverly.

Instead she closed her locker and turned to face Nicole. Her eyes purposefully flickered to her lips and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve told you before, Nicole, we need to keep this strictly professional. At least...as professional as you can be.”

Nicole scoffed, smirk still in place and totally unconcerned. “I can be professional.”

“Prove it,” Waverly said with a challenging arch of her brow. She pushed herself off the locker and headed out of the locker room with a lazy wave over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Agent Haught.”

***

Waverly could barely sleep that night. She just kept thinking about how she was going to be on a plane to Europe for an actual mission. Waverly Earp. Field Agent. Finally she got to be the cool person going on a cool mission with cool guns. 

She just stared up at the ceiling of the small dorm-like room they let her sleep in since she wasn’t allowed to leave the premises, and thought about all the things she’d get to see. Maybe...maybe if there was time they could see the museum after they talked to their expert?

Though she wished she had a different partner. One who wasn’t so annoyingly cocky, but more so, one that wasn’t Nicole.

Waverly’s pride was still hurt from the conference when she’d let herself lean into Nicole and considered kissing her. Well...she considered a lot more than kissing her. And then the rug was yanked out from under her. To find out she was being played the entire time had been a hard pill to swallow. One that was still stuck in her throat. She could feel it, particularly when she was around Nicole. For every trait of hers that was annoying, she had two more that were attractive.

Still, Waverly had drawn the boundary and there was no way she was going to cross it. Nicole was brash and cocky which were the opposite of what Waverly was looking for in a relationship. Even if she was stupidly attractive, and knew exactly how to flirt.

So Waverly just shut her eyes and turned her head into the pillow, willing herself to sleep.

***

_So that cute girl you were flirting with at the convention is your partner, huh?_

Nicole looked at the text from Shae and rubbed a hand over her face. She could feel the exhaustion from the day finally seeping into her bones and knew it was almost time to sleep. But for some reason the idea that Waverly was just one wall away from her was distracting.

_Yeah. She’s definitely not happy about it._

_She did turn about fifty shades of red when I showed up at the bar._

_I’m still sorry about that you know._

_I know. I forgave you a long time ago, Nicole. We were both out the door. Just seeing it in front of my face…_

_I’m so sorry._

_Stop apologizing. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?_

_Can’t sleep. Too distracted._

_You’re always a mess around pretty girls._

_Goodnight, Shae!_

_Fine fine. Goodnight. Don’t die._

_I’ll do my best._

Nicole threw her phone facedown into her open duffle bag nearby so she wouldn’t be tempted to look at it again. With a deep sigh, she slipped her hand up her sleep shirt and purposefully pressed her fingers to the indent of a scar just below her left breast. It still hurt if she pushed on it hard enough. The pads of her fingers felt the way her skin went from smooth to raised, a braille map telling the story of her trauma. She pressed a little too hard and hissed, eyes fluttering shut as the endorphins seeped through her veins like poison.

Shae was right, she was a mess around pretty girls. But she could hide it behind bravado and confidence. It was when she was alone that she was really a mess. 

She liked Waverly. Actually liked her. Waverly was smart and beautiful, and really didn’t seem to like her. Even if Nicole knew she could make her blush and look away in a way that somehow made her even prettier. 

Waverly acted like she wasn’t interested, but that certainly wouldn’t stop Nicole from flirting. It was all harmless anyways. Plus it was only for a day at the most, an easy enough job. Nicole took her hand back out of her shirt and smoothed it over her torso.

For now she would sleep. Tomorrow she could think of a new way to tease Waverly.

***

Wynonna squeezed Waverly so tightly before she got off the plane that Waverly was sure she had cracked a rib or something. Chrissy gave her a wink and reminded her she would always be with her virtually, if she needed anything.

She hadn’t been nervous until they got on the plane.

Waverly couldn’t help the small squeak that escaped her throat as the plane fell in the turbulence, the bottom of her stomach dropping out for a moment. It was a military transport plane so it wasn’t necessarily meant for passengers, but Waverly felt okay strapped into the seat next to Nicole. 

They had big headphones over their ears with mics so they could talk over the loud noise of the plane, but had both been fairly quiet for most of their journey. There was a small window next to Nicole, and Waverly leaned forward a little bit to look out it. She could just see the beginnings of land and she gripped the armrest with pale fingers.

“Wanna look outside?” Nicole asked as she leaned back a little, her voice crisp and clear through the headphones. She smirked and patted her lap. “You can sit on my lap, no need to be shy.”

Waverly glared at her. “You’re insufferable.”

Nicole shrugged. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“Alright, we’re landing now so make sure you’re buckled up,” the pilot said through the headphone mic. Waverly leaned back in her chair and took a deep, steadying breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth. She had flown before, but this felt like a different experience entirely. 

“You alright, Earp?” Nicole asked softly. She managed to open her eyes and look at Nicole, all hints of teasing out of her eyes. Mostly she just looked concerned.

Waverly managed a small smile. “I’m fine.”

The plane jostled just then and she grimaced, eyes screwing shut. 

“You know, I heard it helps to squeeze the shit out of someone else’s hand,” Nicole said, palm up in offering.

Waverly squinted at her. “I’m fine-”

The plane jostled again and her hand automatically reached for Nicole’s, squeezing for all she was worth. She waited for the snarky line, for Nicole to say something flirty about holding hands. But surprisingly, Nicole just gave her hand a reassuring squeeze with her head tilted back against the headrest. Waverly tried to relax into the seat and focus on Nicole’s hand. It was soft and firm...the very beginnings of calluses on her hand that were comforting for some reason.

Before Waverly could think of the implications of this, the plane fell again and she just focused on Nicole’s hand. After what felt like hours, Waverly felt the bump of the wheels hitting the runway. She let out a long sigh but just barely loosened her grip on Nicole’s hand. 

“See? Safe and sound,” Nicole said. 

“Safe and sound,” Waverly breathed out as she finally loosened her grip on Nicole’s hand. Nicole gave her hand one last squeeze before fully letting go. Waverly ran her sweaty palms over the tops of her pants before running one through her hair. She tried not to let herself get too embarrassed from getting spooked, but she didn’t have time to think about how Nicole might give her a hard time for it before she was unbuckling her seatbelt.

Waverly took the headphones off and undid her seatbelt, getting out of the seat before setting her headset down. They grabbed their small backpacks and got off the plane. 

She swore even the air smelled different here. It smelled...fancy and French. 

A few yards away on the tarmac stood a serious looking man in a crisp suit next to a tiny, old red Fiat with some rust marks on it. They walked up to him and he handed Nicole the keys.

“Be back here after the mission. A plane will be waiting,” he said with a single nod, before turning and walking away.

“Is that...normal for you?” Waverly asked Nicole as she walked over to the driver’s side of the car. 

“Kinda, yeah,” Nicole said. Waverly stood at the car door and pulled the handle, waiting for Nicole to open it. “You really think you’re driving?”

“Why not?” Waverly asked, pulling impatiently on the handle again. “Open it.”

“You’re not driving,” Nicole said with a shake of her head, standing in front of Waverly with her arms crossed over her chest. She had her dark sunglasses down over her eyes and Waverly wished she’d thought of that as an intimidation tactic. 

Waverly sighed and matched Nicole stance. “I am driving.”

“Have you ever driven in a foreign country before?” 

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything-”

“Everything’s on the other side of the road, it’s a little disorienting,” Nicole said in a way that made Waverly’s blood boil. Condescending.

“Pretty sure I could manage, Nicole,” Waverly said through tight lips.

Nicole smirked and held the keys up over her head. “Fine. If you can get the keys, you can drive.”

Waverly’s cheeks turned red and she tightened her jaw. “That’s humiliating and I’m not doing it.”

“Then I guess you can’t drive,” Nicole sighed. She began to lower the keys and Waverly took it as her opportunity to jump, her fingers brushing the metal of the key before Nicole yanked them above her head again. Waverly stumbled forward on the landing, her body colliding against Nicole’s front.

They both let out a grunt of surprise, Nicole’s arm shooting out and wrapping around Waverly’s middle to keep them both upright. Waverly’s face was pressed to the middle of Nicole’s chest, nose squished against the soft fabric of her deep blue button up shirt. She smelled just as sweet as she did the day before, and the day they met.

Nicole’s arm around her waist tightened for a moment and Waverly looked up at her with a blush dusting her cheeks.

“You know, Waves, if you just wanted me to hold you, you could have asked,” Nicole smiled.

A new wave of embarrassment washed over Waverly. After the shock wore off, Waverly quickly pushed Nicole away from her with a huff. “That was mean.”

“I’ll tell you what, I drive there and you can drive back to the airport. Deal?” Nicole said, twirling the keyring around her finger.

“Fine,” Waverly said, just wanting to be out of the awkward situation. 

Waverly quickly got over to her side of the car where a small box sat on her seat. She threw her backpack into the back and sat in the car, opening the box to reveal a tiny dual microphone headset and a single contact lens.

They both took the tiny headsets that just looked like small silver studs and placed them on the inside of their ear. They then put the contact in and blinked as they settled.

“Chrissy, can you hear me?” Waverly said, feeling a little foolish talking to no one. Nicole did the same besides her with Shapiro.

“Loud and clear,” Chrissy said, excitement palpable even through the headset. “This is exciting. I can help you with flirting with Nicole too.

“There will be none of that,” Waverly whispered, glad Chrissy couldn’t see her when she’d fallen into Nicole. “And I don’t need help anyways, so...”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Chrissy sing songed.

Waverly sighed and leaned back in her seat as Nicole started driving off the base and into the streets of Paris. After a few minutes, they were finally in the city.

“Wow,” Waverly breathed, as she looked out the window. All the stores had just begun to open, workers unlocking their doors and setting up their displays.

“It’s kinda like nothing else,” Nicole said, as she pulled easily into a nearby parking spot that looked way too small. “Alright. Ready?”

“Are we close?” Waverly asked, as she pulled out her tiny laminated tourist map. She ducked her head to look out the window for a street sign. Suddenly the map was ripped out of her hands and she gasped. “Hey!”

“We’re not close. And you look like a tourist,” Nicole said as she unfolded her long body out of the tiny car.

“We’re supposed to look like tourists,” Waverly reminded her as she got out of the car. “How far are we?”

Nicole shrugged and folded her arms onto the top of the car easily as she pushed her sunglasses up her nose. “We’re only a couple of blocks. It’s a nice walk.”

Waverly looked over the car at Nicole and raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought we were supposed to go right there.”

Nicole raised her eyebrow at Waverly. “I thought you might want to stroll the Paris streets a little bit. There’s a coffee place on the way there that’s really good. We can get a croissant or something.”

Chrissy hissed in Waverly’s ear. “Just go on a damn walk with your hot partner. You have time.”

Waverly nearly rolled her eyes. She kept forgetting Chrissy was in her eye and ear. She saw and heard everything that was happening. Waverly tucked some hair behind her ear and cleared her throat.

Her mouth twitched and she adjusted her backpack on her shoulders. “We have time for that?”

With a quick look at her watch, Nicole shrugged. “For sure.”

“Then I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Waverly trailed off as Nicole pushed herself off of the car and walked around it to her.

“Great,” she winked at Waverly and started down the sidewalk. “It’s right up here.”

Waverly walked after her, taking a deep breath and hooking her thumbs into the straps of her backpack. “How many times have you been to Paris?”

“For work? A lot,” Nicole said. “It’s funny how often people choose to conduct illegal business in beautiful places. But for fun? Never.”

“Really?” Waverly tilted her head. “Where else have you been?”

Nicole started counting on her fingers as they walked. “London, Italy, Sweden, Egypt, Newfoundland, Ireland, Antarctica-”

“Antarctica?” Waverly said in disbelief. “For what?”

Nicole smirked and stopped in front of a cafe, opening the door for Waverly. “Highly classified.”

Waverly just gave her a look as she walked into the cafe. The smell of coffee and baked goods surrounded them and Waverly took a big whiff, her heart filled with joy at the atmosphere. There was a couple in corner enjoying their morning coffee and a couple more tourists huddled in a corner looking at a map. Waverly peered into the display of baked goods and clasped her hands in front of her chest.

“What are you getting?” Nicole asked, leaning a little over Waverly’s shoulder. 

“I’m vegan,” Waverly sighed a little regretfully.

“Ah, yeah, well I also know a vegan bakery if you want to hit that after we talk to this professor guy,” Nicole suggested.

Waverly felt an unwanted warmth in her chest and she kept staring at the croissants. “I’d...enjoy that.”

“Good,” Nicole said as she walked up to the counter. “I’m getting an espresso. What coffee do you want?”

“Oh, I’ll order,” Waverly said in excitement as she bounced over to the counter, practically pushing Nicole out of the way. “_Salut. Puis-je avoir deux expressos s'il vous plait? Sortir._”

_Trois euros._

Waverly handed over the money with a smile. _Merci._

She turned around to Nicole standing close to her, a smile on her face. “You speak French.”

“I do. And Latin, Spanish, Tamil, Greek, and some Hebrew,” Waverly said proudly.

“That’s very impressive,” Nicole said.

Waverly frowned at her. “Are you being cheeky?”

“Not at all,” Nicole said sincerely. Waverly just looked at Nicole a little harder, humming. 

The espresso came and Nicole grabbed it, handing Waverly the cup. Their fingers brushed and Nicole definitely held onto the cup longer than necessary but Waverly smiled in thanks anyways. They continued down the street, Nicole pointing out little things here and there as they did, but mostly Waverly just took in the sights.

Her heart was so full to be in Paris, a place she’d read about for years but never thought she’d actually see. It just never felt like...the right time. She did the online college thing and stayed in Purgatory to work at her Aunt’s bar, never thinking she’d leave. Waverly had resigned herself to a life of living and working in a small town until Wynonna came back with her mysterious job that Waverly wormed her way into. At first Waverly thought that job would be her ticket out, but here she was still living in Purgatory and commuting to the city, even though she had a cool job.

But now she was here. Sure she was here with a woman that she sort of wished would just leave her alone, but she was in Paris. She could suck up her differences with Nicole for a few hours. Admittedly she hadn’t been _completely_ insufferable since they got here.

Waverly could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower over some of the buildings and sighed. “I’ve always wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Is it as magical as it seems?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Nicole said, stuffing her hands into her pants pockets. “We get in there, talk to this guy, and get out with enough time to do some sightseeing.”

Waverly clutched her cup even tighter in an attempt to contain her excitement. “You really think we’d have time?”

“Sure,” Nicole shrugged. “I always have a way of finding extra time for these things.”

Just then they turned the corner and the building they were walking along gave way to a large courtyard with the famous obelisk standing proudly in the middle. A long line of people stood waiting at the front entrance and Waverly started towards the back of it.

“What are you doing, Earp?” Nicole chuckled with a raised eyebrow. 

Waverly looked over her shoulder and saw Nicole standing in the middle of the courtyard. “Getting in line.”

“We don’t need to get in line,” Nicole said, tilting her head towards the entrance. “Come on.”

Waverly followed Nicole past the line and up to the security guard at the entrance. She pulled what looked like a thin black wallet from a pocket on the inside of her jacket and opened it for the guard. 

_”Agent Haught. Ici pour FBI affaires,_” she said in a perfect accent. Waverly gawked at her, wondering why she hadn’t told her she could speak French instead of letting Waverly take the lead back at the cafe. There was something about the words rolling off of Nicole’s tongue that made Waverly want to stand closer to her. The security guard looked at her badge and nodded, stepping aside to let her in and walk past the metal detectors and bag check they had set up at the entrance. Waverly went to follow her and he stepped in front of her, nearly making her walk right into his chest. Nicole turned back, “_Elle est avec moi._”

The guard grunted and stepped aside to let Waverly through. Inside, the lobby felt almost as big as the courtyard they’d just left. There were ticket desks to the right, a big elevator in front of them and hundreds of people milling about, trying to find their bearings. There was a school group to the side, little kids with backpacks almost bigger than themselves standing in a neat line waiting for instructions.

“I’m an agent too, you know,” she said under her breath as she caught up to Nicole. “I have a cool badge.”

Waverly pulled her backpack in front of her as they walked into the lobby of the Louvre and pulled out her badge to prove it. A red maple leaf in the middle of blue sunbeam type shapes and a crown on top.

“Yeah but...yours looks a little fake,” Nicole said, scrunching up her nose, “Not gonna lie.”

“That’s an insult to Canada,” Waverly huffed, stuffing her badge in the front pocket of her pants so it was on hand. 

“Might as well have a happy little beaver on it too.”

“She speaks French!” Chrissy said in her ear. “That means she’s good with her tongue.”

Waverly choked on her coffee, cheeks heating up completely at the suggestion. Nicole lightly hit Waverly’s back with a concerned frown. “Are you...okay?”

“Fine,” Waverly wheezed, waving Nicole off. “Wrong pipe.”

“Okay,” Nicole said slowly, eyes still on Waverly as she led her down a small hall almost hidden behind the escalators that led up to the main exhibits. The noise of all the tourists in the lobby slowly faded away as they badged their way past another guard, heir footsteps echoing along the tile covered hall. “Dr. Bossier should be down here.”

As they walked down the hall, they passed doors bearing official sounding names on placards, until they got to a door emblazoned with “Dr. Bossier, Ancient Technology Expert and Curator”.

“Here we are,” Nicole said, straightening out her jacket before knocking on the door. After the second knock, the door nudged open a little bit with a creak. Nicole and Waverly looked at each other, silent communication passing between them.

“Shit,” Chrissy said in Waverly’s ear. “That’s definitely not good.”

Nicole reached into her jacket and pulled out a handgun, flicking off the safety. 

“Where did that come from?” Waverly whispered. “And why didn’t they give me one?”

Nicole ignored Waverly and stepped in front, standing between the door and her. She rolled her eyes but realized she was in no place to complain when she didn’t have a gun herself. Nicole held the gun in front of her, at the ready, and looked through the small crack of the door before nudging it open with her shoulder. She swept the room with her gun and Waverly stepped into it behind her.

“Empty,” Nicole said, lowering her weapon.

Her eyes landed on the Doctor’s desk and she gasped. Doctor Bossier was sitting behind his desk, head limp and hanging back with his arms hanging off of the chair as lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling. There was a frozen look of horror on his face, mouth open in a silent scream. Sticking out of the middle of his chest was a spear, deep in his flesh, and crimson blood soaking the front of his shirt. 

Waverly’s stomach churned at the sight and she put her hand over her mouth. Nicole looked at her before they looked back at the dead body of their only contact.

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> Hope you like chases through museums and some light combat flirting. Special thanks to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being an awesome beta and not killing me yet.
> 
> Enjoy!

This wasn’t the first time Waverly had seen a dead body. Most notably, she saw her father’s dead and broken body on their front steps. Then, only a few years ago, her sister’s bloody clothes were found on the edge of town after nearly a decade of thinking she’d just run away. Needless to say, even without a body, her sister’s ID inside the pocket of the shredded and bloodied coat was certainly a shock, but not necessarily as traumatizing to lose someone she’d already thought was gone.

But here, standing in front of Doctor Bossier’s body and watching as blood still oozed ever so slowly from the gaping wound in his chest, Waverly felt sick. She was sure they were just a few minutes too late to see his final heartbeat, probably pumping more blood from the wound that was now congealing on his crisp, checkered shirt.

“Nicole-”

“Ssh,” she said, both hands back on her gun, held straight down in front of her. 

Chrissy spoke up in her ear. “Waves, stay behind Nicole, I’m going to try and get a heat scan of the surrounding halls.”

Waverly would have protested except that she knew she had to stay quiet. She suddenly wondered why she hadn’t been given a gun and Nicole had; her pride took a hit from having to step behind Nicole, but she would leave it for now.

“I can’t see anything, this place is a fortress. Shapiro is going to tap into the security cameras,” Chrissy said seriously, voice dropping to an admiring whisper when she added. “She is so talented.”

“Not the time, Chrissy,” Waverly hissed, following behind Nicole as she inched towards a closet door. Just then, the door banged open, a man coming out with his gun pointed directly at Nicole. 

“Give us the tech!” he shouted.

“Fat chance, asshole,” Nicole said but before she could lift her gun and shoot, he pulled the trigger. Just in time, Nicole and Waverly ducked, Waverly clutching the back of Nicole’s jacket. 

Nicole fired wildly, shooting him in the kneecap, and he collapsed with a scream, hand on his knee that was now a gory mess of mangled flesh, bone shining whiteley through. The door that led to the hallway burst open and Nicole rolled to her feet, shooting the intruder in the chest. A surge of blood flew from his chest as he fell to the ground without time to even scream. The man Nicole shot in the knee cap grabbed at them but instead of shooting him, Nicole grabbed a statue that was on the Doctor’s desk and swung it into his skull. It connected with a sickening ‘crack’, his eyes crossing before he fell limp to the ground. 

Waverly stood there in shock, eyes wide at the scene that had unfolded in less than a minute. The two men lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground, at least one probably dead. Nicole stood, chest heaving with the marble statue in her hand. Waverly gasped.

“Nicole! That’s a Caffieri! You can’t just go around hitting people with that!” There was a small, bloody chunk of hair stuck to the corner of the statue, and Waverly groaned. “It’s a classic.”

“I think we have some more important things to worry about right now, Waves,” Nicole mumbled, reaching down and pulling a compact Glock out of an ankle holster concealed in her sock. “Here. Now follow me.”

Waverly took the gun, holding it in front of her as they flattened themselves against the wall next to the door that led to the hall. Nicole quickly spun into the hall, gun in front of her as she scanned it.

“All clear, let’s go,” she said, voice low and rough. 

They both stayed alert and at the ready, knees bent, arms locked in front of them with guns at the ready as they moved through the office corridors back towards the lobby. There was a small beep in her ear and Chrissy spoke again. “Shapiro and I are in both your ears right now.”

“Haught,” Shapiro said. “Left door, two bodies.”

“Got it,” Nicole whispered.

She flattened herself along the wall and Waverly followed suit, briefly distracted by how tense Nicole’s neck was, and how good her jaw looked when it was clenched in concentration. The muscles in her forearm rippled as she adjusted the grip on her gun, the veins in the back of her hand popping. Waverly found herself licking her lips as Nicole swiftly turned, kicked in the door and shot twice, the only evidence she’d even hit anyone the grunts and dull thuds as bodies dropped to the floor.

Waverly bit the inside of her cheek even while her brain screamed at her that Haught might be the coolest person she ever met. Cocky and annoying. But cool. Nicole continued along the wall and Waverly followed.

“We got bogies coming in,” Chrissy said. “North down the hall.”

“Fuck,” Nicole said, straightening up and pulling out her badge just as two security guards turned the corner and ran down the hall towards them. She held her badge up and gave them a look, speaking calmly and quietly. _”FBI. Vous devez partir immédiatement. Nous avons cela sous contrôle._”

“Haught, we got more coming in from behind,” Shapiro said into their ear pieces.

Waverly spun and opened the door to the office right behind them just as a bullet whizzed through the air, hitting the thick metal of the door and ricocheting away. Nicole came up behind her, front pressed to Waverly’s back, as she used the door for cover and took out the three other agents coming down the hall. Waverly couldn’t help but think how warm Nicole’s body was behind her, especially when she put a loose hand on Waverly’s hip to steady herself as she leaned to look back around the door. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Nicole said, hand dropping from Waverly’s hip as she let the door fall closed again. Waverly could still feel the heat of Nicole’s hand on her as she turned around, both of them walking quickly back down the hallway towards the shocked looking guards. 

“_Sors! Maintenant!”_” Waverly yelled. The two guards listened this time, turning around and scrambling down the opposite side of the hall while one of them spoke urgently into their radio.

“Left!” Chrissy shouted, just as the door directly to their left burst open. Nicole had to jump back to avoid getting hit with the door. The man behind the door came out gun first and Nicole grabbed his wrist, pushing it up so that the two rounds he squeezed off went directly into the ceiling. She kneed him in the crotch and he yelled, her hand slamming his into the door so that he dropped his gun. It fell to the floor with a heavy clang and Waverly quickly picked it up as another gun wielding man turned the corner and started running towards them. She shot him in the chest and he went down.

The man writhing on the floor in front of Nicole groaned face first on the ground until Nicole flipped him over, arm tight across his throat and gun pressed to his forehead as she kneeled over him. 

“Who do you work for? Who sent you?” she hissed.

“None of your fucking business, you cunt-”

Nicole’s pushed down on his throat more and he gasped, eyes getting wide. Her lips were curled back, teeth exposed and the vein in her neck popping in a way that was...well, admittedly very attractive.

“You really think you’re in a position to insult me with your patriarchal bullshit, buddy?” she snarled. “Now tell me who the fuck you’re here with.”

He made an attempt to spit at her, gagging wide-eyed at a sudden crunching sound. In a matter of seconds, his eyes got wide and bloodshot, his jaw working as foam came out of the corners of his mouth, and his breathing became more and more labored until his eyes went flat and dead.

“Fuck!” Nicole climbed up off of his body, long body unfolding to it’s full height as she reached for Waverly’s hand. “Come on.”

Waverly jerked her hand away with a scoff. “I need both hands for my gun,” she mumbled. Nicole didn’t seem phased, just continuing down the seemingly now empty hall.

“Better speed up, guys, we got some behind you,” Shapiro said. “Hurry up, blend in with the crowds.”

“Did you get a good scan of the guy from my retina cam?” Nicole asked. The hall suddenly opened up into the lobby and Nicole slipped her gun into the waistband of her pants. Waverly stuck the smaller one in her pocket, and the one she’d taken from the other agent into her own waistband.

“He’s not showing up in any databases,” Chrissy said.

They fell into step next to each other, both with eyes darting around the lobby for any suspicious looking characters. Waverly glanced over her shoulder and saw a man in sunglasses and a baseball cap approaching them from behind.

“One behind,” Waverly whispered. 

“One right,” Nicole said. They ducked around to the other side of the spiral staircase in the middle of the lobby to join the back of a group of high schoolers walking in a pack across the room. “Come on.”

The students were walking into a hall that gave way to shopping, seemingly out of place in such an historic museum, but bustling with tourists all the same. Waverly glanced behind them as they walked past a strangely crowded Starbucks selling mugs with the Mona Lisa on it and saw a group of men walking quickly towards them.

“They see us,” Waverly whispered to Nicole. 

“Alright. I have a way out. Come on,” Nicole said, taking off in a sudden sprint. Waverly ran after her, weaving through the crowd of confused tourists, all yelling at them in different languages. She kept looking over her shoulder for a sign of the men, but they were still following, close on their tails. Nicole grabbed Waverly’s hand just as a tourist group passed between them and the men, the tour guide with a long stick and a pink scarf on the end. Nicole took the opportunity to pull Waverly into a crowded gift shop, quickly pulling two baseball caps with ‘Paris’ embroidered along the front in thick font, rhinestones decorating the brim. She handed one to Waverly as she pulled one on, using the bill to duck and hide her face. 

“You can’t steal!” Waverly hissed. 

“I’ll pay for it later,” Nicole said. 

Waverly huffed but copied her, putting the hat on her head to help hide her face. They both walked quickly to the back of the shop and to a door marked ‘Employees Only’. Nicole didn’t hesitate in pushing it open, revealing a concrete room stacked with boxes. 

As soon as the door clicked closed, the bustling sounds of the gift shop disappeared and Waverly could only hear their breathing. 

“Come on,” Nicole said for what felt like the thousandth time, adjusting the hat on her head. 

They walked through the maze of boxes in the small storeroom and reached another door, pushing it open to the street. Waverly breathed a heavy sigh, smelling the stale, pungent odor of the Paris streets. 

“Chrissy, do you see anything?” Waverly asked, as they walked quickly down the sidewalk back towards where they had parked. 

“No,” Chrissy said. 

“Me either,” Shapiro said. 

Waverly let out a long sigh, some of the tension leaving her shoulders as she became ten times more aware of the heavy guns weighing down her pocket and the waist of her pants. 

“Think we lost ‘em-“

Just then, Nicole spun to face Waverly, pressing her body against Waverly’s until her back was pressed up against the wall. She gasped in shock, hands flattening against the wall behind her, even as her eyes fluttered closed almost immediately at the feeling of Nicole’s body pressed against hers. One of Nicole’s hands was hot on her hip, the other pressed against the wall next to her head. But the kiss didn’t come and instead she heard Chrissy breathe in the ear piece, “Wow that’s hot.”

Waverly felt the flush erupt over her skin, embarrassment flooding her. She pushed Nicole away by the chest and punched her in the arm.

“Ow! What the hell?” Nicole said, as she rubbed the spot where Waverly punched her.

“What was that?” Waverly demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

“There was a guy coming around the corner, I was hiding our faces,” Nicole said, as she ran her hand down the front of her shirt to straighten it. A slow smirk grew over her face and she leaned a little closer to Waverly. “Seemed like you liked it there for a second, though.”

“You wish,” Waverly grumbled as she tried to straighten out her shirt over the lump of the gun in her waistband. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Waverly looked back around, only seeing tourists and locals walking around. Whoever Nicole had seen was obviously gone, if she’d even seen anyone at all. She heard another beep indicating that Shapiro and Chrissy were only in their respective agent’s ears now. 

“Let’s take the main streets, harder to be ambushed,” Nicole said, one thumb hooked in her belt loop close to her gun. They walked quickly, all the joy from being in Paris replaced by a tense fear as she scrutinized every person that she passed on the street. Everyone was too hung up in their own little worlds to really pay her mind as they went. When they got to the car, they both slid into it with a collective sigh, setting their backpacks in the back seat.

“Now what?” Waverly asked.

“We have to get you two back to headquarters,” Chrissy said in her ear. “It’s not safe.” Nicole nodded and Waverly was sure that Shapiro had said something of the same to her. Nicole turned on the car and pulled out of the spot, driving down the small street. After a moment, Nicole looked into the rearview mirror and cursed quietly. 

“You got your seatbelt on?” Nicole asked, putting both hands on the steering wheel and turning the godawful hat she had taken around backwards. 

Waverly’s hand automatically moved to check where her belt was buckled in, dread sinking in her stomach. “Nicole…”

“We’re gonna go for a little joyride, baby,” Nicole gave Waverly a crooked smile and for a moment she forgot her fear. That was, until Nicole downshifted, on the car and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The car jerked forward and Nicole briefly swerved into oncoming traffic to pass a slow moving car in front of her. The car honked and Waverly looked behind them to see a black car with tinted windows doing the same maneuver. “Now would be a good time to get your gun out.”

Waverly quickly grabbed for the gun in her waistband. “I should have reloaded.”

“Just make sure you make it count, alright?” Nicole said, as she pulled her own gun out of her waistband. As if on command, a bullet ricocheted off of the driver’s side mirror. Nicole swerved around another car, making a sharp turn into an alley in an attempt to lose the car on their tail. The car followed and Waverly quickly cranked down the window of the old car.

“They couldn’t spring for electric windows?” she muttered, before leaning out of the window as best she could with the belt digging into her neck and shooting at a tire. It hit the rim with a sharp ‘ting’ and Waverly cursed under her breath. 

“Get your backpack on,” Nicole said in an annoyingly authoritative tone. Waverly looked over just as the sun hit Nicole’s hair in a way that made it shine like copper. The strands brushed along her jawline, somehow accentuating its strong line even more. Brown eyes were fluttering between the road and the rear view mirror. Waverly found herself lost for a moment until Nicole switched the car into a different gear, large hand sliding over the smooth handle of the gearshift and long fingers tensing over the firm metal. 

“Waves! To your right!” Chrissy practically yelled in her ear. Waverly reacted on instinct and turned, pointing her gun out the window and shooting. The bullet burst the window of the black car next to her and it swerved. 

“Nice, Earp,” Nicole said, before she swerved down another small street that was made of cobblestone, the car bumping and jostling dangerously.

Chrissy whispered into her ear. “I saw what you were looking at, Waves. Sexy.”

“Not the time!” Waverly practically squeaked, gripping onto her seat as the car bumped. She looked in the rearview window and there was still a car right behind them, slowly catching up. “Balls!”

“Put your backpack on,” Nicole repeated, as she reached for her own and slung it over one shoulder. 

Waverly quickly slipped the straps over her shoulders. “What are we doing?”

“There’s a bridge coming up,” NIcole said matter of fact. “I know where we can lose them.”

Nicole turned the car so sharply that Waverly’s body was thrown against the side of the door with a grunt. She could see the bridge ahead and adrenaline spiked in her body. NIcole floored the gas pedal before undoing her seatbelt and Waverly’s. As the car approached the bridge, she moved so the driver’s side was close to the low guard rail. 

“Alright, Earp,” Nicole said, with a slightly manic smile. She leaned over and put her arm around Waverly’s waist, pulling her over the center console so that she was basically sitting on her lap.

“What the-!”

Nicole quickly opened the door and threw her body out of the car so that it rolled over the rail, Waverly cradled tightly to her chest. Her stomach dropped as they tumbled off the side of the bridge, falling a frightening distance before the cold water slapped her entire body and a sharp pain erupted over her skin. Nicole’s arms unwrapped around her as they both swam towards the surface of the water. Her lungs burned, and she could feel her shoes heavy on her feet slowing down her movements. 

Now, Waverly considered herself a good swimmer. But she couldn’t say she ever truly tried it with full clothing and a backpack on. Her arms burned as she paddled towards the surface and it felt like a thousand needles were sticking into her lungs as she began to lose strength.

She felt someone grab her wrist and jerk her up towards the surface. A comforting strength pressed to her back, an arm crossed over Waverly’s chest as she was brought to the surface. Her head broke the water and she gasped, sputtering water out of her mouth. Once she got a quick breath, she tried to push Nicole away. 

“Stop! I don’t need your help,” Waverly coughed. 

Nicole scoffed and dropped her arm from around Waverly’s chest. “You looked like you were struggling-”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Waverly said as she got her bearings. They were treading water under the bridge, the sound of chaos finally reaching her ears. There were sirens and people yelling dramatically, so Waverly assumed it was from the unmanned car that had just crashed into a nearby pole. Hopefully, anyways, and not a crowded cafe or something.

“This way,” Nicole started to swim towards the small strip of muddy land under the bridge.

“Are you sure they can’t see us?” Waverly said.

“I’m sure,” Nicole said, standing when her feet gripped dirt. “I’ve used that exact bridge before to escape.”

Waverly frowned, wading onto the land behind Nicole. “What-? For what?”

Nicole set her backpack on the ground and wasted no time in peeling off her jacket and drawing her wet shirt over her head. Waverly’s eyes automatically went to a firm, smooth stomach and over small but firm looking breasts covered by a lacy purple bra. Waverly swallowed thickly, eyes darting back up to Nicole’s face as she blushed. That bra certainly seemed like a poor choice for field work.

“Highly classified,” Nicole smirked. 

She dropped her wet clothes unceremoniously onto the ground and opened up her backpack. Nicole pulled out a new, dry shirt and slipped it over her head. Waverly averted her eyes as she popped open the button of her pants. In an attempt not to just stare at Nicole as she stripped down, Waverly pulled her backpack to the front of her and unzipped it. Everything she had inside was soaked. She pulled out a few laminated maps she had brought, the only things not weighed down with water.

“How are your clothes not soaked?” Waverly mumbled as she zipped back up the backpack.

“Waterproof,” Nicole stated, using one hand to scratch at her scalp and shake water from her hair. “Guess you didn’t get the memo.”

“Well I certainly didn’t think _this_ would be a factor to consider,” she said, squeezing out her hair. 

Nicole went back to digging in her backpack and pulled out a sweatshirt. “Here,” she said as she tossed it unceremoniously at Waverly. “Sorry, I don’t have extra pants, but at least part of you can be dry.”

Waverly looked down at it, the black material faded with love and a cracked ‘University of Texas’ logo on the left breast. “Alma mater?” Waverly asked.

“Classified information, Miss Waverly,” Nicole said, with an exaggerated drawl and a smirk.

Waverly blushed and rolled her eyes. Without another word, Waverly twirled her finger in the air as an indicator to Nicole to turn around while she changed. Nicole winked before making a point of turning around. She held a single finger to her ear like she was listening to something and Waverly quickly pulled her soaked shirt over her head.

“Did you see her abs?” Chrissy whispered excitedly. “And how she saved you from drowning? She’s so hot, Waves. Come. On.”

“Neither of those are facts,” Waverly whispered as she slipped the sweatshirt over her head. She became overwhelmed with the scent of vanilla, head feeling light. The sleeves were far too long so she pushed them up to her elbows, clearing her throat so that Nicole would turn around. “Now what?”

Nicole chanced a peek over her shoulder to make sure Waverly was decent before fully turning around. 

“Now, we keep walking and get you some pants,” Nicole said, putting her backpack back over her shoulder. “Come on, can’t stay still for too long.”

Waverly huffed, but followed Nicole anyway.

“We can’t go to the hotel they set up for us just in case, it’ll definitely be crawling with enemy agents,” Nicole said mostly to herself. 

Waverly blew some hair from her face as they got up to the street level, pushing the arms of the sweatshirt back up to her elbows after they’d fallen. “Who were those people?”

“They could be anyone,” Nicole said, hands on her hips as she looked around the street. Waverly saw their crashed car with people milling around it, police officers scratching their heads. She slid her arm over Waverly’s shoulders and steered her down another alley. “Shapiro is trying to dig up any info she can find, but so far nothing. But now we’re minus one ancient tech expert, so... And chances are, any of our professional contacts have already been tracked. If not killed.”

Waverly didn’t think to push Nicole off of her because her mind was already moving to another solution. Part of her “self-education” was lurking on message boards where things like ancient languages and technology were discussed. There was a solid thirty percent of the time that the people on the site were complete nutjobs, but if you knew how to sort through the garbage, you could find a lot of good information on those sites. Mostly from people who only did this kind of research as a hobby, something to keep them busy while they did their normal nine-to-five jobs. 

There was one particular woman that Waverly had connected with on one of those sites. Even though she was a little brash and very straight to the point, in a way that reminded her of Wynonna so it wasn’t as off-putting as it might have been for other people.

Waverly looked down at the bracelet that just lay dormant, gold glittering in the dim lighting of the street.

“I know someone,” Waverly said, looking back up at Nicole. “Someone who will probably know what this is and how to get it off.”

Nicole frowned. “Where?”

“Italy.”

“Great. Let’s hop on a plane-”

“I have some bad news,” Chrissy said quickly. “So the borders have been alerted about two terrorists who killed a professor at the Louvre today...and well...you guys will be arrested on sight.”

“Chrissy!” Waverly hissed. She remembered Nicole’s arm around her shoulders and quickly pushed it off. “How did this happen? We’re the good guys!”

“Sometimes being anonymous means being mistaken for the bad guy,” Nicole sighed as she ducked into a bakery. Waverly followed suit, slipping inside the doorway and looking around for any sign of danger.

“Is now really the time for snacks?” Waverly hissed at her.

Nicole shrugged. “We need to be somewhere inconspicuous while we have people tailing us,” she said before tilting her chin towards the pastry case. “Plus, I told you I’d take you to a vegan patisserie, didn’t I?”

Waverly blushed and looked over at the case where everything was labeled “vegan” or “gluten free” or both. She couldn’t help the smile that twitched at the corner of her lips as she looked at the case. 

“I guess-...I mean...thank you,” Waverly mumbled, hoping to hide her blush as her stomach rumbled with hunger. 

“No problem, Earp,” Nicole said with a proud smile and a wink. Just cocky enough that Waverly rolled her eyes. “Plus, I have a way to get us to Italy, I just need some time to contact some people.”

Waverly squinted up at Nicole. “Does it involve me getting arrested?”

“If it goes correctly, no,” Nicole said. She pointed to a table in a corner with both of the chairs facing the front door. “I’ll be over there.”

Before she slipped away, Nicole handed Waverly ten euros. Waverly scoffed at it, mumbling about how she could pay for her own snacks when Chrissy spoke in her ear again.

“She’s super sweet, you have to admit,” Chrissy said.

Waverly rolled her eyes and stared into the pastry case. “She’s an okay human being. So far.”

“But she was super bad ass in the museum!” Chrissy argued. “And she gave you her sweater. That’s _so_ sweet.”

“It was either that or I walk around soaked from head to toe, she had no choice,” Waverly said even as she tilted her chin down to get a good whiff of the sweater, head swimming from the sweet smell of it.

“I don’t know, Waves, you were checking her out earlier,” Chrissy said. “Not to mention how your heart rate spiked when she pressed you into the wall-”

“I thought I was being attacked!” Waverly hissed. The man working behind the counter heard her talking to herself and frowned. She gave him a charming smile and he turned back around, shaking his head. “I don’t see what you’re trying to get at here, Chrissy.”

“Just that you totally have a thing for Haught,” she said with a smirk apparent in her voice. “And that you can’t hide it.”

Waverly practically growled. “I do not! She’s cocky and annoying and clearly a cheater. All things I’m not interested in.”

“Everyone has flaws.”

“Whatever. I’m just going to go to Italy, get this damn bracelet off and be done with her,” Waverly said, running a frustrated hand through her hair. “This’ll all be over by tomorrow.”

“Whatever you say, Waves.”

Waverly tried not to look grumpy when she ordered her vegan croissant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody!
> 
> Welcome to the chapter that my beta [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) dubbed the best chapter of this fic. There be shenanigans ahead.

“I hate you,” Waverly said, glaring at Nicole as she came out of the public restroom. The door closed and even her blind rage and the sound of the bathroom cleaning itself couldn’t distract her from the version of Nicole that was standing in front of her. And she _loved_ that there were self cleaning bathrooms. She’d always wanted to see one in real life, even though Wynonna had told her many times that trying to stand in one while it cleaned itself would be a disgusting idea. But that wasn’t the point at the moment.

The point was, Nicole was posed in front of Waverly in tight, dark jeans and a tucked in, button up shirt. She wore a motorcycle type leather jacket and a beanie with her hair tucked into it just enough that it made her hair look shorter. It looked like she had even put makeup on her face to give herself a five o’clock shadow. Basically, she looked like some kind of hot, clean cut guy.

Waverly looked down at herself. She had on dirty high top sneakers and baggy, beige cargo pants, paired with a baggy t-shirt emblazoned with some sort of spray painted, almost explicit looking graphic on the front. 

Nicole smiled at Waverly, eyes darting down to take in her outfit. “You look great, Waves.”

She shot Nicole a look and tugged at her shirt. “I look ridiculous.”

“Wait, I got something else for ya,” Nicole pulled her backpack to the front and pulled out a flat brimmed baseball cap. She set it on Waverly’s head with a smirk. “There ya go, champ. Tuck your hair into that.”

Waverly visibly shuddered at the name. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Waverly muttered as she tucked her hair up into the baseball cap while Nicole waved down a cab. It pulled right up and they got into the car, Waverly crossing her arms in protest as she looked out the window. If anything it just made her look more like some kind of pre-pubescent skater kid.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Nicole said, adjusting the beanie on her head. “You look cute. It’s easier to pass the face recognition shit when you switch genders. Plus, people are stupid.”

“It’s just not fair that I’m dressed like _this_ when you get to be hot,” Waverly said, the words slipping from her mouth before she could censor herself. Even Chrissy snickered in her ear. 

“So, you think I’m hot,” Nicole stated, perfectly manicured eyebrow arching into her hairline.

“Shut up,” Waverly muttered as they pulled up to the airport. 

“You totally think she’s hot,” Chrissy whispered.

“You shut up too,” Waverly said, as she pulled her backpack on. She turned back to Nicole who had slipped sunglasses over her eyes, as if she needed to look cooler. “Why do I have to be a _minor_?”

“They won’t be looking for a kid, Waves,” Nicole said, as they started walking towards the doors. “Plus, you got that cute little angel face-”

“I have cartoon boxers on and you look like you’re about to walk in a hot dude parade,” Waverly grumbled, pointedly ignoring Nicole’s comments even if it warmed her body.

“Again, calling me hot,” Nicole smirked. 

“Not the point! You’re so infuriating,” Waverly said, pushing past her to go down the path to get in the miraculously short security line. Nicole walked up behind her and handed Waverly a passport. It was a French passport, maroon cover, and on the inside was a pretty well photoshopped picture of Waverly with cropped short hair. “My name is...Chad Brockman? You gave me the douchiest name ever?”

“I didn’t choose the names,” Nicole said. “Or I definitely would have given you something more French.”

“Who did then? Who is this mysterious contact that books us aliases and gives us clothes?”

“Highly classified,” Nicole winked, as she walked up to the security booth. 

Waverly’s stomach clenched in anticipation, sweat prickling along her hairline as she thought of how to approach this. She didn’t want to overthink the whole thing and make herself even more suspicious looking, but too much eye contact would also be suspicious. It was a delicate balance. Waverly decided to look bored like any good teenager would and just appear disinterested. 

The bored looking security guard took their passports, barely looking up at them as he scanned them and waved them through. Nicole leaned down and whispered in Waverly’s ear. “See? Easy.”

Waverly pushed Nicole with her shoulder and let out a breath she’d been holding just as her stomach grumbled. She looked over at a busy cafe and down at the large, plastic cartoon character watch that had come along with this outfit. 

“We have time for food,” Nicole said. “A growing kid like you should have all the nutrients they need as far as I’m concerned.”

A woman walking past them seemed to overhear, nodding in approval as her eyes scanned obviously over Nicole’s body. Waverly felt a flare of...something. Definitely not jealousy. Definitely annoyance. 

They got in the line for the food and as Waverly adjusted the cap on her head, a strand of hair fell out along her face. An older man was standing in front of them wearing a sweatshirt with “Florida” screenprinted obnoxiously across the front, an alligator holding a shotgun and wearing a trucker hat below. His sunburned neck was still apparent under it, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He did a double take as Waverly fussed with the long strand of hair coming from her cap. 

He scoffed and Waverly’s eyes darted to him, hardening immediately. The man looked between Nicole and Waverly, giving an awkward smile to Nicole as he tried to get her attention.

“What is it with kids these days, huh?” he chuckled.

Nicole finally looked up at him, blinking. “Huh?”

The man looked back at Waverly, gesturing to her hair. “I’m sayin’. Kids these days, these millennials, they don’t realize they look like hobos. With their pants hanging off their bottoms and their _hair_.”

Waverly crossed her arms over her chest. “What about my hair?”

“Well, back in my day, son, we wore our hair neat. The long hair makes you look like a girl,” he chuckled and looked back at Nicole like he was waiting for her to agree with him.

“That’s mighty binary of you,” Waverly said haughtily. 

Nicole snorted and looked back up at the man, whose face was getting redder by the minute. She shrugged. “What can I say? Kids are getting smarter and smarter.”

The guy nearly choked but thankfully he was called up to order before he could say anything. Nicole and Waverly looked at each other blankly until slow smiles crawled over their faces and they snickered together, heads bent close. When the guy left the register and glanced at them, Nicole just gave him the rock on hand gesture and he scoffed.

“Never talk to me and my son again,” Nicole joked in an even deeper voice. Waverly elbowed her in the side and they both laughed again as they went up to the register. They got some food just as the flight was being boarded. Waverly walked up the aisle behind Nicole, inching along at the snail pace that was set by the people in front of them.

As she was talking, Waverly found her eyes wandering down to where Nicole’s pants hugged her ass just-

“Waverly!” Chrissy gasped in her ear. “You minx!”

Her eyes darted back up to the middle of Nicole’s back. Maybe she could just play stupid. “What?”

“Your heart rate has spiked. I know what you were doing.”

“I’m just nervous!”

“Yeah right.”

Nicole glanced over her shoulder and Waverly blushed like she’d been caught. “What?”

“What?” Nicole frowned. Waverly just blinked at her and Nicole raised an eyebrow at her. “We’re at our seats.”

“Right,” Waverly mumbled, as she slid into the awkward middle seat besides a bored looking woman. Waverly leaned over to Nicole as they did up their seatbelts. “Why do I have to sit in the middle?”

“Because you’re shorter than me. I need to stretch into the aisle,” Nicole reasoned with a smug smile. 

“The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let me have the aisle,” Waverly pointed out. 

Nicole just shrugged, undeterred. “If you eat right, kid, you’ll shoot up like a weed.”

Waverly huffed and pulled out the magazine in the seat pocket in front of her to flip through. Last time she’d been on a commercial plane, Wynonna had gotten drunk on a bunch of little bottles of booze she snuck onto the plane before they even took off. So when Waverly had been scared by turbulence, Wynonna was passed out and Waverly just had to clutch her limp arm. Waverly had already embarrassed herself on the last flight with Nicole, so she was determined not to do it again.

The flight took off fairly smoothly and Waverly felt a little more relaxed when she saw the flight attendant coming down the aisle with the drink cart. Even if she looked more like a model than a flight attendant. Tall with long legs under her skirt and tan skin, dark hair pulled back into a tight bun and light eyes turning to Nicole as she got to their aisle.

“Bonjour, would you like a drink?” she said in a cute accent. 

Waverly felt Nicole straighten up besides her and rolled her eyes. She smiled brightly at the flight attendant and Waverly felt an angry stone sink in her stomach.

“I would love something,” Nicole said in her deeper voice that really hit Waverly in some kind of way. “What are you offering?”

“You can see it all on the cart,” Waverly said. The flight attendant’s eyes finally turned to her.

“I’m sorry, would you like some juice? We have cookies as well.”

Waverly’s cheeks turned bright red and Nicole chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse him, he’s been acting out lately.”

“Oh, your son?” the flight attendant said, eyes back on Nicole. “You don’t seem old enough.”

Waverly was sure her eyes rolled right out of her head. Nicole was eating it up, her face getting sober as she looked down at her lap for a moment. “Oh, well, I adopted him after his mother died. My sister.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, hand covering Nicole’s on the armrest. “That must have been hard.”

“It was,” Nicole nodded. Did she have—Waverly swore there were tears in her eyes. Big stupid crocodile tears. Waverly scoffed so loudly that the flight attendant jumped a little. It just made her give Nicole an even more sympathetic look and hand her a bottle of whiskey along with her coke. She handed Waverly a juice box and some cookies before moving on to the next aisle. 

“That was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever witnessed,” Waverly whispered to Nicole. She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Jealous?”

“You wish,” Waverly blushed and purposefully looked away.

Chrissy whispered in Waverly’s ear. “You’re totally jealous.”

“I have to use the restroom,” Waverly said instead, unbuckling her belt. She stood up and started inching out of the seats before Nicole even had a chance to move her legs or stand up to make it easier for her. 

“Ow, hey, wait, hold on-”

Waverly stumbled over Nicole’s foot and squeaked as she tumbled back, landing directly in Nicole’s lap. Her blush got even deeper and she just sat there for a moment, Nicole’s front to her back.

“Sorry,” Waverly mumbled. She moved to get up and felt something hard against her ass. She frowned and turned quickly to look back at Nicole who had that smug smirk on her face. Waverly’s face felt like it was on fire as she whispered. “Wha-...Nicole, are you packing?” 

“I had no choice, those scanners see everything these days,” Nicole shrugged. 

“You didn’t have me-” 

“Kids don’t have to go through those things. Lucky you,” Nicole said. 

“How the hell did you get it through the scanner?” Waverly whispered. “Security doesn’t have a good track record with packers.”

“FBI tech is _really_ advanced,” Nicole’s eyes darted down Waverly’s body. “You should see the things this baby can do.”

“This feels unnecessary,” Waverly hissed, still not moving from Nicole’s lap as she tried to get her bearings. She felt oddly lightheaded and a little warm.

Nicole’s smirk got wider, eyes darting down to Waverly’s lips. “Well, you’re not moving to get up. Should I go to the bathroom with you-”

“You’re preposterous,” Waverly said, shooting back up to her feet with cheeks impossibly red.

“That’s a big word, kiddo,” Nicole winked. 

Waverly didn’t look back as she stomped her way to the bathrooms, face red with embarrassment and Chrissy snickering in her ear. 

***

As soon as they got to the main part of the airport, Waverly went back into the bathroom to change back into normal clothes. She stuffed the baggy cargo shorts and t-shirt into the bathroom trash. Being back in even simple jeans and a comfortable sweater felt so much better. She was braiding her hair as she walked out of the airport, when her eyes automatically went to Nicole. Sitting astride a matte black Ducati motorcycle. 

Waverly nearly choked on her own spit at the sight. 

There was just a low whistle in her ear and she cursed out Chrissy at the sound. She was going to get an earful when they got back from...whatever nonsense this was. Adjusting the backpack to a comfortable place on her shoulders, she walked up to Nicole who held out a helmet for her.

“Really?” Waverly said, snatching the helmet from her.

“What?” Nicole said, carelessly running a hand through her short red locks and tousling them. Waverly hated how attractive she was with so little effort. It truly was an inconvenience to her job trajectory.

“You couldn’t get another car? You had to get a...motorcycle?” Waverly said, looking down at the helmet.

“It’s Italy. I prefer to do Italy in the open air. And mopeds are no good for high speed chases. Which we seem to be getting in lately,” Nicole said as she slipped the helmet over her head. “Plus we look cool.”

Begrudgingly, Waverly let herself admit that Nicole looked cooler in the helmet and leather jacket. She put her helmet on and slid onto the bike behind Nicole. She gave Nicole the address and wrapped her arms as loosely around her waist as possible. The less she had to touch Nicole the better. Especially when she could get the whiff of warm vanilla even through her helmet.

Nicole kicked the motorcycle to life and it jerked forward, making Waverly grip Nicole tightly. She felt her body rumble in a chuckle as they took off down the street. She adjusted her grip on Nicole, making sure she was holding her waist and her hands weren’t accidentally groping Nicole’s chest or anything. The bike rumbled between her legs and she shifted awkwardly, trying to ignore the rush of warm tingles that were making their way up her spine. Instead, Waverly took in the sights, head bent back and looking up at the architecture she had only read about in books before. 

It was beautiful. Far more beautiful than she had ever imagined. And she had imagined it...a lot. Admittedly, when she had daydreamed about Italy in the past, there was a romance element involved. It changed, depending on her mood. Either she would go with someone (preferably the love of her life) or she would meet someone abroad (preferably the love of her life). It always varied between a tall, dark and handsome man and a tall, sophisticated woman, but instead she was here with...Nicole. 

At least she was tall.

When they got up to the corner bookshop, they took off their helmets and stepped off the bike. There was an old hanging sign carved in wood above the door: Blacksmith Books. Waverly remembered writing out the address to send Mexican candy in exchange for a rare book on Latin spells Waverly had been looking for. 

Nicole’s hair was tousled from the helmet, sticking up at awkward angles as she unzipped her leather jacket so that it hung open. Waverly’s eyes lingered on the long line of her neck as she stretched.

“Waves.”

Waverly blinked, eyes focusing back on Nicole who had clearly caught her staring. But instead of the usual cocky remark, her brow furrowed in concern as she felt Waverly’s forehead with the back of her hand.

“You feeling okay? We haven’t really been sleeping,” she said.

“I’m fine,” Waverly said, taking Nicole’s hand down from her forehead, letting their fingers brush together just a little too long. She cleared her throat and looked back at the bookstore. “You have that package your mysterious contact delivered at the airport?”

“Yep,” Nicole said, digging into her backpack and pulling out two colorfully decorated bags. One with a cartoon pineapple on it and one with a cucumber. Nicole looked at them and turned a bag over to read the back. “What an odd request. Delicious though.”

“I’ve never had them,” Waverly said with a dismissive wave, “Not vegan.”

“Of course,” Nicole mumbled, still looking at the package.

“Come on,” Waverly said, heading towards the bookshop entrance. Stepping inside the shop, the temperature felt like it dropped several degrees, but not in an unpleasant way. The musty smell of old books was both familiar and comforting, seeping deep into her skin as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. “Hello?”

The shop was narrow but deep, aisles upon aisles stacked messily with books of varying age. Some old, some new, some with pages falling from the spine. With the sun streaming in through the windows, Waverly could see the dust settling in the sunbeams and filtering through the air around them. She listened for any sign of a human but there was nothing. The gun in her sock felt heavier as she looked down the long aisle.

“Mattie?”

“Who’s there?” came a voice from down the aisle, followed by quick footsteps. Mattie emerged from the shadows at the end of the aisle, long dark hair flowing behind her. She had on a loose fitting white blouse tucked into beige pants like she had just walked out of some kind of Egyptian exhibition.

“Mattie,” Waverly said, with her friendliest-person-in-Purgatory smile. “It’s me, Waverly- erm…” She blushed and tried to lower her voice. “...BoneBabe95.”

Nicole snickered behind her and Waverly quickly turned to look at her. “Shut. Up.”

“Sorry, it’s just-” Nicole slapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a laugh as she shook her head. “It’s so-”

“I know!” Waverly whispered, ears burning as she turned back to Mattie who was looking suspiciously at the two of them. “I sent you the candy. For the Latin spell book. Oh!” She looked back at a still snickering Nicole and snatched the bags of candy from her. “I brought you more.”

Mattie’s eyes widened as she looked at them, holding her hands out reverently. “Pina loca _and_ pica pepino!”

Waverly smiled proudly. “All for you.”

Mattie tentatively took the candy. “What do you want? I should have known better than to give someone my address. Are you trying to rob me or what? I don’t have anything-”

“No no,” Waverly said quickly. “I’m here on...government business.”

Mattie just looked even more suspicious as she looked between the two of them. “Who’s the ginger?”

“Nicole Haught,” the redhead said as she smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Waverly’s partner.”

“_Professional_ partner,” Waverly clarified airily. “We’re actually...we’re here because of this.” Waverly thrust her wrist towards Mattie, the bracelet glowing blue for a moment as an intricate pattern became apparent on the metal. Mattie recoiled like Waverly had thrown a snake at her. She clutched the candy to her chest and eyed the two of them.

“Why would you bring that here?” Mattie hissed, retreating back into the stacks. 

Waverly panicked and followed her. “Wait! We need help-”

“Well you’re not going to find it here,” Mattie said with a dismissive wave. “Thanks for the candy.”

She ducked into a small room in the back, shutting the door in Waverly’s face just as she reached for it. With a small squeak of surprise, Waverly huffed in frustration.

“I thought you said you were friends,” Nicole said, leaning on the wall beside the door with one of the lollipops bobbing between her lips. Pineapple based on the smell of it. _How did she even get that out of the bag?_ Waverly never saw her open them. She just gave Nicole a look.

Nicole wiggled her eyebrows at Waverly as she swirled the lollipop with her tongue. Waverly’s eyes followed the way her pink tongue darted out to draw the stick further in her mouth, cheeks hollowing out as she sucked on the candy. Waverly felt a tingling deep in her belly as she and Nicole just stared at each other. Maybe Waverly could imagine slamming Nicole up against the bookcase and replacing the lollipop with her mouth. But it was just the exhaustion talking. She cleared her throat and looked away.

“We are friends...on the internet. You know some people get weird in person,” Waverly mumbled. “Especially when you shove a piece of ancient tech in their faces.”

Nicole just hummed and stood back to her full height, pushing off the wall with her shoulder. She knocked lightly on the office door but there was no answer. She knocked again as she pulled out her badge.

“Mattie? My title is actually Agent Haught, I’m with the FBI-”

She couldn’t get the rest of her sentence out before Mattie opened the door again, the chain on the inside of it rattling as it reached its full length. Only a sliver of her face was visible as she looked between Nicole and her badge.

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said, with her stupid charming smile. “Dead serious.”

Mattie gave her a dry chuckle. “You’re gonna be dead alright. You should have never moved that technology to begin with.”

“Long story short, we didn’t have a choice,” Waverly said. “We just need to get it off of me and get it back to Canada as soon as possible.”

Mattie frowned. “I thought you were FBI?”

“She’s FBI, I’m CSIS,” Waverly said, pulling out her own badge. Mattie’s frown only deepened. 

“That one looks fake,” she said.

Nicole chuckled. “Right? I swear, Canada is a fake country.”

Waverly quickly put it away in embarrassment. “Neither are fake! Anyways...Mattie, can you help? I know you’re one of the leading experts on Mayan technology-”

“Yes. _One_ of,” Mattie said. “You should be talking to Dr. Bossier, he likes working with you government types.”

Nicole and Waverly just looked at each other, silent conversation passing between them. They probably shouldn’t tell Mattie why they couldn’t go to Bossier...but-

“He’s dead,” Nicole said bluntly, as she turned back to Mattie.

“Dead,” Mattie said flatly.

Waverly had a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Yes.”

“I’m guessing because of this nonsense,” Mattie’s eyes lingered on the bracelet. “Just more reason you shouldn’t have brought it here. It’s like you’re trying to get as many people killed as possible.”

“We’re not, we promise,” Nicole assured her, somehow looking professional even with the stick of the lollipop hanging from the corner of her mouth. “We just need to get it off of Waverly and out of here as soon as possible.”

The door slammed in their faces and Waverly jumped at the sound.

“Or you can just get out now! Stop involving me in this business,” Mattie said. “I didn’t move here to still get involved in this nonsense.”

Waverly stored that bit of information in the back of her brain for later, wondering how much she could get Mattie to divulge about why she had ended up in Italy. She licked her lips and looked back down at her wrist. Mattie was, at the end of the day, a researcher. Someone who could never pass up an opportunity to learn. Especially about something that knowledge was so hard to come by.

“Mattie...I know you have the info we need. And just think, you’ll get to say that you’re one of the few people who have touched this tech!” Waverly tried to bargain. “One of the only ones to study it!”

“Only because everyone else is dead,” Mattie pointed out, her voice muffled through the door.

Waverly tried again, voice desperate. “Please? We promise you’ll be safe.”

There was silence on the other side of the door until they could hear the scraping of the metal chain on the door and it opened again, this time wide enough for Mattie to slide her body between the door and frame.

“You need a key to get it off,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not your traditional key though. I’ll have to show you.”

Like that, Mattie pushed past them and took off like a shot among the stacks. Nicole and Waverly looked at each other briefly before scuttling after her, trying to keep up. They practically ran behind her as she moved through the stacks with ease, plucking books from shelves and handing them to Nicole as she went. The pile got steadily higher and higher and Waverly allowed herself to gaze at the way Nicole’s biceps became even more apparent under the tight fabric of her jacket. After the stack was about to Nicole’s chin, Mattie seemed satisfied and pulled the top one off the stack right where they stood in the middle of an aisle.

“Really, you should be talking to my sister Gretta. She knows far more about this stuff,” Mattie mumbled, as she flipped through a book that looked like it had been taken down to the bottom of the ocean and brought back up, pages wrinkled and stiff. “But she’s also a mercenary and would require a lot more than lollipops to be convinced- aha!” Mattie pointed to a paragraph in the book and shoved it at Waverly. “The key is in a private collection. Here in town, lucky for you. At the Clootie compound.”

Nicole turned her head and whispered something, probably to Eliza. Mattie pulled one of the middle books from Nicole’s stack, and she scrambled to make sure that the rest of the stack didn’t fall.

“Clootie? As in Constance Clootie?” Waverly frowned, dragging up bits of knowledge she had probably just heard in passing.

Mattie just nodded, already onto another thread of thought as she led them to a better lighted area at the front of the store. She dropped the book on a cluttered table and bent over it, Waverly leaning in besides her. There were some sketchings of what looked like ancient runes on the page, Latin writing underneath. They both leaned closer and Waverly gasped.

“This book must be hundreds of years old,” she breathed.

“Oh, it is,” Mattie smiled. She pointed to the middle rune, a symbol like a snake etched into the illustration. “There’s only two of these in existence, one with Clootie, and you need it to get that death trap off your wrist.” She flipped the page and pointed to a line of runes at the top. “This still hasn’t been translated yet.”

“Wow,” Waverly breathed as she leaned closer to the book, suddenly forgetting everything else going on in her life.

***

Nicole stood, reverently watching the way that Waverly’s eyes glowed as they walked through the stacks of books. She had already told Shapiro to find out about the Clootie situation. They had to find a way into their compound, whatever that was. 

She watched Waverly follow Mattie up to the front of the store, her eyes on Waverly the whole time. It was hard not to get distracted when everything about Waverly was pulling her in. Luckily, Waverly kept pushing her away and keeping her at an arm’s length, because Nicole wasn’t sure if she could control herself if Waverly even gave an inch. Nicole liked watching Waverly blush and her little cheeks puff out in anger whenever she said something to annoy her. It was fun to get under her skin when she was usually very good at keeping cool.

Nicole had been intrigued by Waverly since the moment she met her two years ago. 

Waverly and Mattie bent over a book at the front of the store and Nicole couldn’t help how her eyes fell naturally to Waverly’s ass. She was only human after all. And the way that the jeans clung to her-

“Perv,” Eliza said in her ear. Nicole scoffed and set the pile of books down on a nearby table. These two would obviously be occupied for a while. 

“I’m not a perv, just appreciating the sights,” she said, wandering back down one of the aisles. “Did you find anything on Clootie?”

“Yeah, well you’ve been appreciating the sights through this whole mission,” Eliza pointed out. “And yeah. Guess who has a fancy fucking Gala happening tonight.”

“Inside the compound?”

“Yep.”

“Perfect,” Nicole said looking back to where Waverly and Mattie were still talking about whatever key they needed. She would let Waverly fill her in later and let the two nerds just be nerds together. Plus, she liked the way Waverly’s eyes would light up when she talked about something she was interested in. “I’ll get my contact on it. Can you send me a map of the compound?”

“I’ll find you one,” Eliza said. “Now stop perving and do your job. Or at least jump her bones.”

Nicole scoffed. “Okay, Shapiro.”

“And keep your camera on while you do,” Eliza joked.

“Not funny,” Nicole said, pulling out a random book and opening it. “Okay, I gotta go dark for a second.”

“Right, to talk to your _mysterious contact_. Whatever,” Shapiro said before logging off with a beep.

Nicole just rolled her eyes to herself and used the numbers on her watch to dial a new number. There was a brief beeping before a familiar voice picked up.

“Hey, babe, what do you need?”

***

Across the continent, the sounds of a jungle echoed within an ancient tomb. It was small, but still grand in its decorations. Intricate carvings and gold leaf adorned the outside, a grave that had remained undiscovered for centuries.

But inside, an ancient power stirred, awoken to right a wrong by any means necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday break! Here's more of these idiots to stress you out. Thanks to my beta [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being awesome.

Mattie let Nicole and Waverly use a small bedroom she had above the shop. She was adamant that they not use the room to the left, which Waverly assumed was her own bedroom. They went up an old, narrow staircase in the back of the shop, steps creaking as they ascended, Waverly in front of Nicole. There was a dusty book clutched to Waverly’s chest where the key was sketched. She was determined to reread it again, even though she had it almost memorized anyway.

Waverly practically moaned at the sight of the bed, her entire body screaming at her to lie down. Nicole put her hands on Waverly’s hips from behind and gently moved her forward in the small room so she could close the door, and Waverly was too tired to even protest.

“Take a nap,” Nicole said as the door clicked shut. She slid her arm around Waverly’s shoulders and slowly walked her towards the bed. Waverly’s eyes felt heavy with sleep and she leaned a little into Nicole. “I have some things to do anyways. By the time you wake up we’ll have our outfits and tickets into the Gala. Okay?”

“I can help,” Waverly mumbled, even as Nicole gently pushed her down to sit on the bed.

The room was small, one tiny bed shoved into a corner with a window above it and a table beside it. There were some books stacked up along the edges of the room, and a single bookshelf whose shelves seemed to sag under the weight of all the books stuffed into it.

“You’ve already helped, Waves,” Nicole chuckled. “You’re useless if you’re tired.”

“What about you?” Waverly asked.

Nicole tried to take the book from her arms but she just held it tighter, pouting at Nicole for a moment. She still had that stupid lollipop in her mouth, almost completely down to the stick by now. Her lips were shiny and red, probably completely covered in melted sugar. Waverly wondered if she’d be breaking her veganism if she kissed her right now. Frowning to herself, Waverly shook her head and finally released her grip on the book. 

“This isn’t the first mission I’ve worked while sleep deprived,” Nicole said, taking the book and setting it on a nearby table. 

“When else?” Waverly asked, as she stepped on the back of her sneakers to get them off of her feet. 

“Highly classified,” Nicole smiled at her own running joke and Waverly just rolled her eyes.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I get it. You’re very impressive,” Waverly muttered as she finally gave in and lay down on the bed. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t nap too.”

“I’ll wait until you’re done,” Nicole said, going over to the book and thumbing through the pages a little. “There’s not enough room anyways.”

Later, Waverly would call herself stupid. But at the moment, scooting over on the bed and pulling the throw over herself, then patting the empty spot next to her, seemed like the best idea.

“There’s plenty of room,” she said, humming as she got comfortable nuzzling into the pillow. Nicole chuckled, suppressing a yawn that Waverly definitely caught. “Come on, Haught.”

“Fine,” Nicole said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands and bending down to untie the laces of her boots. She slipped between the sheets, back to Waverly as they both got comfortable on the tiny mattress. Waverly’s eyes were already closed but her fingers brushed the back of Nicole’s shirt and she hummed. At least her brain wasn’t tired enough to listen to her half baked thought of putting her arm around Nicole and snuggling into her back. It was an excellent idea and Waverly was definitely not doing it.

“Night, Nicole,” Waverly whispered.

“Night, Waves,” Nicole said, as Waverly drifted to sleep.

***

Nicole wasn’t great at sleeping in the middle of a mission. Not one that was as high risk as this one. She had intended to lie down on the bed long enough to placate a sleepy (and adorable) Waverly, who she found terrifyingly hard to say no to. Though, to be fair, it was hard to say no to Waverly in general. 

Waverly seemed to straddle the line between cute and sexy in a way that, in a matter of seconds, sent Nicole between wanting to push her up against a wall to wanting to hold her and kiss her all over her face. It was jarring and intriguing and damn, Nicole couldn’t get enough. But there was another layer to the whole thing, this sort of pull that Waverly had on Nicole. They’d only been working together for a couple of days and Nicole would do anything for her. Not in the way that she would do anything for her partner, that was a courtesy across all missions. In the way that Nicole would do anything for _Waverly_.

Like lie down on an uncomfortable bed when a whole organization of people was after them. An organization they didn’t even know the name of yet.

Nicole waited for the sound of Waverly’s breathing to even out before she started to slowly climb out of bed, but Waverly suddenly threw her arm over her waist and pinned her in place. Nicole froze for a moment before slowly trying to sneak up from under her arm, but Waverly just clung tighter and snuggled into her back with a sleepy mumble. She found herself blushing, body warming from the contact. Waverly’s hot breath could be felt through her shirt and Nicole shivered.

Relaxing back into the bed for a moment, Nicole thought for a moment. Waverly’s grip slackened, and Nicole turned so she was on her back, staring at the ceiling. 

There were more sleepy mumbles from Waverly as she adjusted, laying her head on Nicole’s shoulder and hand near the hem of her shirt. Nicole groaned. This was definitely not getting her out of bed any time soon. She looked over at Waverly, sleeping peacefully and mouth slightly open. There was some hair over her face and Nicole had the urge to reach up and brush it from her face, but she balled the blanket in her fist instead.

“You got it bad, Haught,” Shapiro said in her ear.

Nicole quickly looked back up at the ceiling. “Do not.”

“You’ve never been a good liar,” Shapiro said, through a mouthful of crunching.

“Are you eating chips?” Nicole asked, stomach suddenly rumbling. That sucker could only hold off her hunger for so long.

“Salt and vinegar,” she said. “Now when are you going to make your move?”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “It’s pretty clear Waverly isn’t interested.”

“I don’t know, she seems pretty into it,” Shapiro said.

“Yeah, well, we’ve got a mission to complete,” Nicole said, as Waverly snuggled more into her. Nicole’s heart fluttered and her hand naturally began to trace light patterns on her back as she slept. Holding back a yawn, she shook her head. “Maybe I will take a little nap.”

“I’ll wake you up in a few,” Shapiro said. “Now go snuggle with your new bae.”

“God, don’t ever say that again,” Nicole mumbled, letting her eyes close. Shapiro didn’t answer, instead she just logged off and left Nicole to her own devices. She licked her lips and looked back at Waverly, their faces close now, with Waverly’s head lying on her shoulder. A smile tweaked the corner of her lips as she reached up and gently brushed the hair from Waverly’s face. 

Waverly sighed, smiling in her sleep and Nicole’s heart jumped in her chest. 

“Great,” Nicole said, closing her eyes and looking back up at the ceiling. Waverly’s body pressed against her was...comforting despite her internal protests, and she found herself drifting to sleep.

***

Waverly slept oddly well, waking up as the sun had started to set. It streamed through the sheer curtains onto her eyes and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fend off consciousness for a moment more. 

She had been having an amazing dream before she started waking up. She tried to search her mind for the loose ends of the dream. The more she sunk back into sleep, the clearer the picture became. There was a beach, she was lying in the sand and someone was rubbing lotion on her back. Someone was straddling her hips from behind as strong hands ran over her back. She wiggled her hips and there was a distinct pressure between her thighs as someone began to trail kisses down her spine.

She would hum and turn onto her back and look up into brown eyes and-

_Nicole._

Waverly’s eyes slammed open, immediate embarrassment reddening her cheeks even if she was only facing a wall. The pressure between her legs was still there, infuriatingly enough, and Waverly groaned to herself.

Wow. She really needed to get laid. And _not_ by Nicole.

Maybe she should have continued her date with Beth. She wrinkled her nose at the thought and just tried to regain her bearings. She was in Italy above Mattie’s bookstore. Oh and there was a whole mess of enemy agents after them. Right.

Waverly started to turn over but stopped mid roll when she saw Nicole pulling up black tuxedo pants. She had a white dress shirt hanging around her shoulders and was looking at herself in the full length dusty mirror in the corner. In the reflection Waverly could see her exposed torso and a surprisingly lacy black bra, and her eyes trailed down to the soft curves of her stomach. The whole sight certainly didn’t make her...situation any better. Her mouth hung slackjaw, watching as Nicole buttoned up her shirt. Long fingers pushed the expensive looking buttons through the holes. 

Suddenly brown eyes caught Waverly’s in the mirror and Nicole smiled widely. 

“Morning, sleepy head.”

Embarrassment flooded through Waverly’s body and she was sure her entire body was flushed. It was as if Nicole could sense her embarrassment and she smirked, one eyebrow slowly arching.

“It’s not morning,” was all she could manage to mumble, eyes still stuck on Nicole’s body.

“See something you like, Earp?”

Waverly nearly choked on her own tongue and she tried to hide her embarrassment behind a scoff.

“Y-you just have a-...a button undone,” Waverly managed, trying to be nonchalant. Nicole looked down at her perfectly buttoned shirt, amused smile still on her face. “I mean...I guess...I was wrong. Trick of the light.”

Nicole just nodded, clearly not buying it as Waverly cleared her throat and sat up in the bed, looking down at her watch.

“Smooth one, Waves,” Chrissy whispered in her ear. Waverly wished she could kick her ankle just a little bit right now.

“I have a dress for you,” Nicole said, pointing to a dress hanging on the back of the door. It was gold with delicate beading along the arms and had a deep V in the front and back. 

“Oh...wow,” Waverly said, getting out of bed and walking towards it. She brushed her fingers along the beading that continued on the long skirt and Nicole came up beside her as she tucked her shirt into her pants. 

“Nice, huh?” Nicole said. She was so close that Waverly could smell her cologne and she just nodded as Nicole took it off of the back of the door and held it out to her. “Put it on. I have a car coming.”

“A car?”

“Yeah, you can’t go to a Gala without a car,” Nicole said matter of factly.

“Do I have time for a shower?” Waverly said. She needed to step under a cold stream of water to calm her nerves. Even if it was in the tiny bathroom the size of a closet. 

“Just make it quick, Sleeping Beauty,” Nicole winked at her and Waverly quickly left the bedroom. As she took her shower, she kept thinking about Nicole with her shirt undone. And how soft her skin must be. All Waverly would have had to do was push her hands into the shirt and smooth her hands across Nicole’s stomach and-

Waverly quickly shook her head and finished up her shower, the cold water thankfully distracting her enough to realize she was being being ridiculous. Nicole was...Nicole. Nicole had flirted with her when she still had a girlfriend and her girlfriend caught them. Nicole Haught was obviously not worth the trouble, and that would be her new motto.

Nicole Haught was not worth the trouble and potential heartache. No one was.

It just made it harder that Nicole was so...well, hot.

After she towel dried her hair and body, Waverly slipped into the dress that fit her like a glove. There was a zipper that went from her ass up to the middle of her back but she couldn’t get it zipped up all the way on her own. Gathering the bottom of the dress so it didn’t drag, Waverly went back into the bedroom where Nicole was sitting on the edge of the bed and stashing a gun in her sock.

Nicole looked up and did a double take, eyes widening as she looked at Waverly. The look on her face made Waverly’s blood warm, cheeks flushing. She hated how Nicole’s attention made her smile and run a hand over the front of her dress, a little self consciousness creeping into her voice.

“Does it look okay?” she asked softly.

Nicole stood up immediately and strode over to her, getting so close that Waverly’s breath caught and for a moment she thought she might kiss her. Instead, Nicole stopped short like she remembered something and smiled brightly.

“More than okay,” she answered, voice low. “You look beautiful.”

Waverly’s blush deepened and she looked down at the dress. “Thanks. I-...you did good.”

“You’d look beautiful in anything, so you really made my job easy,” Nicole winked and Waverly let out a short laugh, quickly looking away. “Let me get your zipper.”

“Oh, right,” Waverly said, turning around and facing the mirror. She watched Nicole’s brow furrow until she found the zipper and gently pulled it up. Her fingers brushed the skin of Waverly’s back and she suppressed a shiver. 

Waverly looked up and Nicole was looking back at her in the mirror. It was nice to see Nicole blush for a change as she cleared her throat and took a step back. 

“Oh! I picked up something else,” she said, going over to the corner where her backpack was. She dug through and pulled out a small blue velvet pouch. Opening it, she tipped it so that a white gold necklace slipped out onto her palm. Nicole smiled shyly, holding it by its chain so that the pendant on it spun in a slow circle as she approached Waverly again. Standing behind Waverly, she looped the necklace around her neck and the silver pendant settled on her skin, still warm from Nicole’s hand. She clasped it behind Waverly’s neck. “I thought it would complete your outfit. A little simple...but-“

“I love it,” Waverly breathed, eyes on the pendant as her fingers ran over the symbol stamped into the front. It was a rune, a vertical line that had a small pyramid sticking to the right side of the line. “Protection. It’s a protection rune.”

“While you were sleeping I read through your little book and,” Nicole just shrugged. 

“Thank you,” Waverly said, throat starting to close from emotion. She didn’t think she’d ever gotten anything so...meaningful from someone. Definitely not from someone she was dating. Not that she was dating Nicole. Obviously. Or that she ever would. Even if she was really sweet. 

“I’m just glad you like it,” Nicole said softly. Waverly would say she sounded shy if she knew any better. She wanted to turn around, lift herself onto her toes and kiss Nicole on the cheek, but Waverly knew better than to encourage her. 

Waverly could hear Chrissy’s heavy breathing in her ear but she chose to ignore it for now. 

“Let me get your bow tie,” Waverly said, looking for something to distract herself but not quite ready to be far from Nicole yet. 

“Oh, thank you,” Nicole said as Waverly lifted Nicole’s collar to get to the tie. She smoothed her fingers over Nicole’s neck with a blush, eyes focused on her fingers. She could feel Nicole staring at her and could practically feel her breath on her face. Carefully, she tied the bow tie in a perfect bow, smoothing out the edges with her thumbs. 

“It’s like prom all over again,” Waverly joked as she fixed the tie. 

“Did you have a good prom?” 

“No it was awful,” Waverly chuckled. “My ex, Champ, he was...well he was drunk before he even came to pick me up. My Aunt Gus wasn’t happy.”

“Sounds like a dick,” Nicole said, her voice rumbling through her throat and against Waverly’s fingers. 

“He was,” Waverly mumbled as she smoothed out the final crease of Nicole’s bow tie. “How was your prom? Did you have girls hanging off of you?”

Nicole laughed as Waverly flipped her collar back down. “Not at all. My town wasn’t too big on being queer. I did have a good time smoking behind the auditorium with the preacher’s daughter during prom though.” Nicole wiggled her eyebrows. 

Waverly laughed and made one last attempt at straightening the tie. Just more reason to touch her. “Let me guess, she was a cheerleader too.”

“She was. And the prettiest girl in school,” Nicole said before her eyes darted down Waverly’s body. “You used to be a cheerleader.”

“Head cheerleader,” Waverly bragged for a second. “How did you know?”

“I’ve always had an eye for cheerleaders,” NIcole teased. She paused for a second, reached into her pocket and bringing out a velvet ring box. “Oh I almost forgot.” 

Waverly’s eyes got wide. 

“Oh my god oh my god _ohmygod_,” Chrissy said in Waverly’s ear. “She wants to _marry_ you.”

Nicole flipped open the box to reveal a ring set, diamonds sparkling around one band and a sizable diamond on the other. 

“Oh,” Waverly squeaked. 

“Now I can’t take credit for these, the contact that got us into the Gala dropped this for me.” Waverly let out a small sigh of relief as Nicole took her hand and slipped the rings onto her ring finger. She held up her own hand to show off a simple silver band on her ring finger. “Our alias is as a married couple.”

Waverly cleared her throat and pulled her hand away. Right. They had aliases. This was all a farce. 

There was a knock on the door and Mattie’s voice came from the other side. “There’s a car outside. Should I threaten them?”

“We’ll be out in a minute,” Waverly said as Nicole handed her a garter with a holster attached. She slipped it up her thigh, making sure it was secure. Nicole adjusted her cumberbund and grabbed her tux jacket and their backpacks while Waverly checked her hair in the mirror one last time. It was just hanging down in natural curls, but it would have to do. Slipping into her matching high heels, she followed Nicole down the stairs. 

Mattie was peeking out the front window at the simple black car idling in the street.

“Let me guess, from your contact?” Waverly said, as she shrugged a wrap around her shoulders. Nicole opened up the door for her and she slid into the car, Nicole close behind. The car had a dark screen between the front and back seats and Waverly frowned.

“Don’t worry, we can trust them,” Nicole said. “They’re an anonymous CIA contact.”

Waverly just hummed as Nicole pushed a couple of buttons on her watch and a floorplan came up on the watch face. She leaned over and held her wrist near Waverly’s so that the layout appeared on her watch too.

“Floorplan for the Clootie compound,” Nicole explained. “Just be familiar. I already have it memorized so-”

“What?” Waverly asked, unable to keep how she was impressed out of her voice. “How?”

“Photographic memory,” Nicole explained. “We’ll leave our backpacks somewhere outside where no one will find them, before we go inside. Just in case.”

Waverly spent the rest of the car ride studying the layout while Chrissy whispered in her ear about how hot Nicole looked in her tux. Waverly was painfully aware of how hot Nicole looked. It kept pulling her attention and making her squeeze her thighs together. As they got nearer, Nicole started talking again. 

“So you’re a private collector of ancient pieces,” Nicole said, leaning back in her seat and slinging her arm across the back of the armrest so that her fingers just barely grazed the back of Waverly’s head. It was tempting to lean back into her hand but mostly Waverly was impressed by her wing span. Nicole spread her legs in a way that dripped cockiness and Waverly raised an eyebrow at her. “And I’m your sugar daddy. I’m in ‘finance’. No one ever asks questions when you say that.”

“So what, I’m a trophy wife?” Waverly asked.

Nicole smiled as she teased. “Nah, baby, you know I love you for more than your looks.”

Waverly blushed at the term of endearment but tried to play along anyways. ”I’m only using you for your money anyways.”

“Now that hurts,” Nicole said, putting a hand to her chest like she was wounded. “I’ll have you know that I am more than my money. I’m great in bed too,” Nicole smirked and Waverly nearly choked on air. “Anyways, we met at a charity auction two years ago. You outbid me on a Picasso so I bought you a drink and the rest was history. We were married one year ago on the coast of France, just close family and friends.”

“We were only dating a year?” Waverly scoffed.

Nicole’s smirk widened. “What can I say? When I see something I want, I don’t wanna wait.”

“How long were you and Shae together before-”

“Not important,” Nicole said, smile faltering. 

Waverly moved to reach out in a silent apology but sat on her hands instead.

“Sorry,” Waverly whispered.

Nicole just shrugged it off, smile back to full brightness. “No time for gossip. We can talk more later.”

“Eight months,” Chrissy whispered in her ear. “They were together _eight months_. Eliza told me at breakfast-”

Waverly’s ears perked and she whispered. “Breakfast? You two had _breakfast_.”

Chrissy remained silent and Nicole was ignoring Waverly’s comment if she even heard it. Why were Chrissy and Shapiro getting breakfast together? Chrissy was definitely not telling her something.

They pulled up to a big iron gate, set in the middle of a tall brick wall with spikes at the top. Guards were posted at the iron gate and both Nicole and Waverly stiffened as they went up to talk to their driver. Waverly heard a few muffled words before the car resumed moving through the slowly opening gate. They both breathed sighs of relief and settled back into their seats as they drove up the long driveway.

“Alright, we’ll go in and lay low. The room we need is near the back of the house so we just have to wait for an opportunity to slip past the guards and get in,” Nicole said. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” Waverly said, getting out of the car when they came to a spot. She took her time walking around the car to hiss at Chrissy. “Why does Nicole have to be my _wife_?”

“Come on, Waves, it can’t be _that_ bad. You were all cuddly with her earlier. She’s hot and talented, take one for the team here,” Chrissy said. “Do you know how many other people would kill to be in your shoes?”

Waverly just grumbled as she walked up beside Nicole. She straightened out her tux before reaching down to lace her fingers with Waverly’s. Her first instinct was to jerk away but Nicole just held her hand tighter. 

“We’re married, remember?” Nicole leaned down and whispered in her ear. There was an unwanted pull at the bottom of Waverly’s stomach with how Nicole’s hot breath caressed her ear, but she just clenched her jaw and ignored it.

“Right,” Waverly mumbled as they began to walk up the stone steps at the front of the mansion. No wonder it was called a compound. The place was the size of a museum, which is probably why it doubled as one, with Clootie filling the displays with her own personal collection of historic sculptures and paintings. The name was well known in the art world and whispered about in the online ancient tech forums that Waverly found herself frequenting. It was rumored that Clootie had her hands on some rare artifacts no one even knew about.

Nicole pulled out two gold leaf invitations from the inside of her jacket as they got close to the entrance, where a man in a tuxedo was waiting to check them in. After a quick look at the invites and the guest list, they were gestured into the house. 

Two glasses of champagne appeared seemingly out of nowhere and into their hands. It was hard for Waverly not to gasp as soon as they stepped into the main hallway. It was long with high ceilings, with obviously expensive pieces of art hanging all along the walls. Waverly had only seen the likes of this in movies or history books. The hallway opened into a grand ballroom with people milling about in fine clothing, all holding drinks in their hands. There was a full orchestra in the corner playing classical music, and Waverly had never felt more out of place.

“Now we just have to blend in,” Nicole said, taking a small sip of her champagne. “I’ve had to blend in to far hairier situations. Just stick with me and we’ll be fine.”

“How long do we have to blend in for?” Waverly said, already made anxious by the security detail posted along the perimeter. It was to be expected, Waverly was sure the amount of money on the guests in this room alone would be enough to buy the entire town of Purgatory. But it made her skin itchy to think that someone could be onto them at any moment. 

“Well, we have to at least wait out the first cocktail hour,” Nicole said, looking around the room and taking a deeper sip of her champagne as people started to fill the dance floor. “Clootie makes a speech and then everyone goes into the second ballroom for the silent auction.”

“There’s a _second_ ballroom?” Waverly whispered. A small town girl certainly did not belong here. Waverly took a long sip of her champagne and tried to chase away her imposter syndrome.

“Yes, so in the meantime, we sip expensive alcohol and nibble on hors d'oeuvres,” Nicole said, grabbing what looked like a stuffed mushroom cap off of a tray and handing it to Waverly. “Unfortunately, these are the only vegan option I could find when I hacked into the caterers system to get the menu.”

Waverly took the mushroom and looked down at it, a warmth starting in her belly. “You looked at the menu?” Nicole just nodded. “For...me?”

Nicole ducked her head, a sweet smile gracing her lips as she looked back up at Waverly. “Well, I couldn’t have my wife starving all night,” she said softly. “Let’s just make this like...a better prom. For the two of us.”

Waverly smiled at the sweet gesture, taking a small step closer to her. “I don’t know. Sounds like you had a good time with the preacher’s daughter at yours.”

“Nah, she’s nothing compared to you anyways,” Nicole said without a hint of sleaze in her voice. Suddenly, Waverly’s unwanted attraction to her became painfully obvious between her thighs. She groaned to herself and finished off her glass of champagne. Almost immediately, it was refilled, as if by magic.

Nicole’s hand touched her lower back and Waverly’s skin tingled, craving the touch. Every part of her was already sensitive, overstimulated from the deep pull between her legs, and she stepped away from Nicole. 

“Must you always be touching me?” she snipped, cheeks flushed.

“We’re supposed to be young and in love,” Nicole reminded her, hand still hovering on her lower back, but not quite touching. “But if we want me to stop, just tell me.”

“Well...I don’t want to break our cover,” Waverly mumbled, stepping back into Nicole’s hand. Nicole brushed her thumb over her spine almost absently and Waverly had to actively keep herself from melting.

Waverly hated how suddenly Nicole seemed to be able to get under her skin in a different way. The general annoyance with Nicole had been one thing, but the casual attraction that had been there since the moment they met only seemed to be getting stronger with each day. At first, it chafed at Waverly, every time Nicole would flirt or touch her. But now it set her body on fire in a way that was much harder to ignore.

Honestly, it was Nicole’s fault for being so nice and charming. It was easier when she was just a cocky asshole. Waverly absently touched the necklace around her neck and drained the rest of her champagne. Nicole plucked the flute from her hands and set it on a nearby table with her own.

Waverly just blinked at her for a moment until Nicole held her hand out. “May I have this dance?”

“Uh, shouldn’t we be...surveilling?” Waverly asked, tugging her wrap further around her shoulders to hopefully hide the blush on her chest.

“Come on, we have time for at least one dance before it’s time to rock and roll,” Nicole said, already leading Waverly to the dance floor. “We’re trying to make up for Prom. Remember?”

“Just dance with her!” Chrissy insisted, excitement palpable through the earpiece. 

“Fine,” Waverly said to both Chrissy and Nicole as she was pulled into her arms. Nicole had one hand low on her hip and was holding her hand with the other as they slow danced to the beat of the song. Waverly was sure she knew the name of the song, but it seemed all coherent thoughts flew out of her head as soon as Nicole smiled down at her. 

Her body was firm and comforting against her own and damn, it pissed Waverly off. She put her arm on Nicole’s shoulder, fingers playing nervously with the fabric of her tux.

“So,” Nicole asked after a few moments. “How am I holding up against Champ so far?”

Waverly laughed and tipped her head to the side as she looked up at Nicole. “Alright I guess.”

“Just alright? Damn,” Nicole said as she slid her hand around Waverly’s back and pulled her a little closer. “Guess I have to step up my game a little bit, huh?”

Waverly hummed and ran her hand along the back of Nicole’s shoulders, cupping the back of her neck. “Just don’t puke on me before the night is over and you’ll be fine.”

“I suppose I can manage that,” Nicole chuckled.

She spun Waverly out and back in, Waverly’s back to her front as they continued to sway. Waverly’s throat felt tight, entire body on alert for more than one reason at the moment. Mostly from the way she could feel Nicole’s breath close to her neck. She felt Nicole’s head bend down closer to her ear and her breath stuttered as she leaned her head to the side to give Nicole more access to her neck without her even thinking about it.

“Waves, Clootie is about to take the stage,” Nicole whispered, turning them so that Clootie was in Waverly’s line of sight. 

She quickly straightened up and cleared her throat. Right. They had a mission. A purpose. This was all for show. Waverly focused on Clootie, a shorter woman in an expensive looking gown with blonde hair just past her shoulders. She had two guards on either side of her as she strode towards the stage where the band was.

“Come on,” Nicole said, as she loosened her grip around Waverly’s waist and took her hand instead. As the music died down and people began to filter towards the front of the room, the two of them slowly made their way towards the front of the hall. Just as they were about to move into the hall, a woman bumped into her, spilling a little champagne on her arm.

“Oh, sorry honey,” the woman said, reaching to wipe off her arm. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Waverly assured her as she watched in horror as the woman got close to touching the bracelet. She looked up and smelled the woman’s expensive perfume before anything. Followed by her neck dripping in diamonds and her short, red bob. Still the woman wiped at Waverly’s arm and she could smell the alcohol on her.

“I’m so sorry, you’re just so little I didn’t see you there,” the woman said with a haughty chuckle. Her fingers paused as they brushed over the bracelet and Waverly froze. Symbols lit up around the bracelet in a bright blue and Waverly swore she could feel it shake.

_Please don’t shock her in this crowded room, please don’t shock her in this crowded room-_

“Wow,” she said. “This is...these symbols look like something I read about once.” Her dark eyes darted back up to Waverly, serious for a moment before she smiled with a nose crinkle. “Of course only a _real_ collector would know about that.”

“Oh, this ol’ thing?” Waverly said, pulling her arm against her chest and out of the woman’s grip. “My wife bought it for me, it’s a step counter.”

The other woman frowned and looked between Waverly and Nicole. “Are you sure? It reminds me of a piece from Mexico I saw once-”

“It’s a reproduction,” Nicole finally said, cutting the woman off. “A very good one.”

“Clearly,” the woman said, eyes still on the bracelet.

“Only the best for my baby,” Nicole said, arm snaking around her waist and hand settling on her hip. Waverly leaned into her, putting her own arm around Nicole’s back between her shirt and jacket.

“I keep her around for a reason after all,” Waverly teased.

There was some slight feedback in the mic and the woman quickly turned towards the sound. Nicole practically lifted Waverly with her arm and carried her out towards the hall quickly before the woman turned around again.

“God, she was annoying,” Nicole mumbled.

“Yeah, and almost got shocked,” Waverly said, waving the bracelet in front of Nicole’s face. She chuckled and pushed Waverly’s hand down.

“Yeah, keep that thing contained, tiger.” Nicole looked up and down the hall before releasing Waverly’s hand and starting towards the back of the house. “This way. There’s a closet down here that has a vent that can give us access to the room where they’re hiding the key.”

Waverly frowned and pulled up the plans on her watch. Nicole was right. She clasped hands with Nicole and followed down the hall, with the two of them sticking to the sides of the walls. They tried to appear casual since the place was crawling with cameras, pausing every once in a while to look at art and just look like two people who stumbled away from the main party.

They got to another turn in the hall and Nicole stopped so abruptly that Waverly bumped into her back. 

“Oof!”

“The closet is right up here.” Nicole turned around and pinched her cheeks before pinching Waverly’s. 

She jumped and batted at Nicole’s hands. “Ow! What the hell?”

“It’s to give you that rosy, tipsy look,” Nicole said. She slung her arm over the back of Waverly’s shoulders and drew her close to her side. “Now act like you like me.”

“What?”

Nicole practically fell into the hall, tripping over her feet a little bit as she snorted. The guards down the hall looked at them a little suspiciously and Waverly took a deep breath. She quickly shoved a goofy smile on her face and slid her hand over Nicole’s stomach, holding her waist on the inside of her jacket. 

Nicole dipped her head close to Waverly’s ear and whispered. “Follow my lead.”

She dragged her lips across Waverly’s cheek and she flushed so deeply that she was sure Nicole didn’t need to pinch her cheeks.

“Hey, where are you two ladies going?” one of the guards asked as he stood up straight, frown on his face.

Nicole chuckled and stopped so Waverly just giggled and put her face in Nicole’s neck, one arm still in her jacket as the other looped around her neck. 

“Sorry, fellas,” Nicole said, voice rumbling through her throat. “I was just looking for some place to take my girl, if you know what I mean.” Nicole’s hand fell to the swell of Waverly’s ass and she tensed for a moment before remembering to just play along. “She had a lot of champagne and champagne makes her uh...rowdy.”

Waverly turned her head just enough to see the two guards ogling her with disgusting sneers on their faces. Nicole drew her closer protectively, and Waverly giggled, running her hands up Nicole’s chest. 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to wait until I got home either, a gal like that,” one of the guards said with an accent Waverly couldn’t quite place. “Is she as much of a looker from the front as she is from behind?”

Waverly practically growled and Nicole rubbed small soothing circles on the bare part of her back with her thumb. “I’d show you but she’s a little shy, you know?” The guards snickered and Nicole’s hand slipped back down to her ass. “So uh, you got a closet or something? It shouldn’t be long. Once my girl’s got her engine revving it does t take too much time.”

“Uh, yeah, over there,” the guard said, tilting his chin over to the closer they needed. “Shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t mind us...you know...doing our job and standing out here.”

They elbowed each other and Nicole just held Waverly tighter. “Thanks, guys,” she said, walking Waverly into the closet and shutting the door.

As soon as they were inside, Waverly pushed Nicole away by the chest. The closet was about as big as her bathroom back home. Big, but not Kardashian sized big. It was bare, only empty clothing rods across the sides. The lighting was dim so they clicked on the light of their watch face that modified into a flashlight. It lit up the entire closet and Nicole leaned past Waverly to make sure the door was closed. Their faces were close and Waverly just gasped.

Nicole smiled at Waverly and pulled away before reaching into the inside pocket of her jacket, pulling out a small metal toolkit.

“You got a little handsy out there,” Waverly said, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Nicole said with an apologetic smile as she shrugged off her jacket. “I figured the more I was covering it the less those assholes got to look at.”

Waverly shifted from her heels to the balls of her feet. “You treat all your partners that way?”

“Jealous?” Nicole teased, handing Waverly her jacket so that she could roll up the sleeves of her shirt. “Also, I don’t usually have a partner. So. No.”

“A lone wolf?”

“Something like that.”

“You sound like my sister,” Waverly said. Nicole looked up at the vent in the corner of the closet as if assessing it. “How are we going to get through there?”

“You can fit,” Nicole said confidently. “Now, you’re going to have to make sex noises.”

Waverly choked on air, eyes practically bulging out of her head as her brain short circuited. “Wha-what?”

Nicole smirked. “They think we’re having sex, Waves, and we have to keep them off our scent for as long as possible. So that means we have to have loud, very enjoyable sex.”

Waverly just blinked at her, shock written all over her face as she tried to get _that_ image out of her head. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, so make it good, Earp,” Nicole winked and turned towards the vent and stretching up at her full height to start unscrewing the vent cover from the wall, her shirt untucking as she did so.

How did she get herself into this situation? At a fancy Gala with pieces of art worth more than her entire existence, pretending to have sex in a closet with one of the hottest people she’d ever seen. She cleared her throat and let out a soft, noncommittal moan.

“Oh, come on, Earp,” Nicole said. “Make it convincing.”

Waverly rolled her eyes and moaned a little louder. She noticed Nicole’s jaw clench even as she focused on the screw and smiled to herself. Nicole wasn’t the only person who could push buttons. She leaned back against the wall, pushing her hips out a little as she let out a particularly enthusiastic moan.

Nicole’s hand slipped on the tiny screwdriver she was handling and she cursed as it clattered to the ground. Bending down to pick it up, Nicole whispered to Waverly over her shoulder. “Be a little more enthusiastic. We have to make it believable and I already told you I’m great in bed.”

Waverly rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to oversell you, your ego is already getting too big for this closet,” she whispered back. Still, she hit the wall with her hand and groaned a little obscenely. 

Nicole’s cheeks flushed and she quickly turned back to the vent. She let out a small noise of happiness as the vent came off, but groaned when there was a screen behind the metal vent cover. 

“Goddammit.”

There was a knock on the door and they both froze, eyes wide as they stared at each other. “Hello?”

Nicole set the vent cover on the floor, grabbed her jacket from Waverly and threw it on top of it to hide it, and quickly pressed herself up against Waverly. She gasped, fingers quickly working to undo Nicole’s bowtie and crinkle her shirt a little bit.

“Hello?” Another more urgent knock.

Nicole hiked Waverly’s leg high over her hip and she let out a strangled sound at the feeling of Nicole’s hips pressing into her. She ran her hands through Nicole’s hair to muss it a little bit and wiped some of her lipstick off and onto Nicole’s collar. They clicked off their watch lights and Nicole’s face got close in the dark, so close that their noses bumped together and Waverly’s eyes fluttered shut in anticipation. Her lips parted slightly, breath bated and waiting for Nicole’s lips to touch hers and-

“I’m about to get handsy again,” Nicole whispered and her hand ran up the inside of Waverly’s thigh just as the door banged open. Waverly’s hands tightened in Nicole’s hair and Nicole’s lips went to her neck. 

Waverly turned her head just enough to look at the guard who was blinking like he was trying to adjust to the light. “You said you’d only be a few minutes.”

Waverly didn’t know what to focus on. Nicole’s teeth scraped a sensitive part of her neck and her leg tightened almost involuntarily around her hips, bringing Nicole closer as her fingers played along the sensitive skin of her thigh, close to where she knew there was an embarrassing amount of heat radiating. 

_”Étaient occupés_,” Waverly breathed, eyes half lidded as Nicole’s fingers brushed against her garter holster. Nicole quietly unsnapped the strap of the holster and pulled the gun from it, ready to shoot if he made a move. Waverly could feel her clicking off the safety and the man looked between them for a moment.

Nicole finally pulled her mouth off of Waverly’s neck just long enough to look at the guy. “We’re almost done, buddy,” she said, voice low as she thrust her hips into Waverly obscenely. She couldn’t help the moan that escaped her throat, head falling back against the wall.

He just mumbled something and closed the door again. They were plunged back into silence and the two of them just stayed still for a moment, both breathing heavily as their chests heaved against each other. Waverly swallowed thickly and scratched her blunt nails over Nicole’s scalp as she turned the safety back on the gun and slipped it into Waverly’s holster.

Nicole growled, head falling briefly to Waverly’s shoulders as she took a deep breath. Both of her hands were pressed against the wall on either side of Waverly’s head and she turned her face into her neck. “Baby, you gotta stop that.”

“Why?” Waverly said, tongue thick and core throbbing.

Nicole pushed herself off of the wall and away from Waverly with a smirk. “I like it too much.”

And like that, she turned back to the vent where she unscrewed the screen from the front.

Chrissy piped up in her ear. “Are you alright there, Waves? Your heart rate is going crazy.”

“Shut up,” Waverly whispered, running a shaky hand through her hair.

“Aha!” Nicole exclaimed quietly as she pulled the screen off of the vent. She stepped away and gestured towards it with a flourish. Her hair and shirt were still mussed, lipstick on her collar and cheeks flushed, and she’d never looked more attractive. “All ready for you.”

“For _me_?” Waverly whispered. “Why me?”

“You’re the cheerleader here. And take a gander into that room,” Nicole said as she pointed up towards the vent. Waverly sighed and toed off her heels, walking over to where Nicole stood with her hands laced together to boost Waverly up to the vent. Waverly let her lift her up and she gripped the edge of the vent to peer through. The wall was thick so she had to pull herself up and navigate about a six foot space to look out of the vent on the other side. 

It was a fully metal room that looked like a morgue, drawers with pin pads on them. In the middle of the room was a stand, a single rock on a pedestal in the middle. There were red lasers barely visible criss crossing around the pedestal to protect it. Waverly frowned. 

“Someone has seen too many movies,” she said to herself.

“Here, take this,” Nicole tapped the end of her foot with the screwdriver before throwing it into the small space of the vent for her. “Get that other cover off while I distract the guards. Don’t worry I’ll make you look good.”

Nicole let out a loud moan, “Yeah, baby.”

Waverly rolled her eyes and made a point of ignoring the embarrassing pounding between her legs. She unscrewed the covers quickly and slid down the side of the wall. Her dress dragged, landing with a heavy thud on the ground. There was a beep in her headset and Nicole’s voice rang through.

“Hey, Earp,” Nicole said, letting her know she was in her ear. “Can I tap into your optical cam?”

“Sure,” she said, fussing with her skirt. “Scale of one to ten, how much would you be upset if I ripped this dress?” 

“Go for it, baby,” Nicole said a little louder, probably for the benefit of the guards. Waverly quickly ripped it at the knees, the excess falling to the floor.

Waverly surveyed the room, eyes taking note of every laser and how it was positioned. They had talked about such a possibility briefly in her training. It was a thing they prepared for, but in the years she had been a handler, there had never been a moment that she saw this as a possibility. It felt more like something people assumed a secret government spy would do.

“Alright, here goes nothing,” Waverly mumbled to herself as she rolled her shoulders, pushed her hair up into a bun and slipped her leg between the first two lasers, a little lower than hip height, and bent to get her body through it. She held her breath as she slipped her entire body through, straightening up and letting out a breath when she got to the other side.

“Yeah, baby, suck me,” Nicole groaned so loudly that Waverly could hear it through the vent.

“Stop!” Waverly whispered, body completely flushed. “I’m trying to work here!”

“I’m trying to give you more time!” Nicole hissed in her ear. 

Waverly took a deep breath and tried to shake off all of her nerves. She could do this. She _knew_ she could do it. She just wasn’t sure if she could survive Nicole’s sex noises.

Holding her dress carefully in her hand, she bent and moved through.

“Looking good, Waves,” Nicole said softly. Waverly had forgotten for a moment that Nicole was watching her moves through her optical cam on her watch, and did a little more bend and flourish for her benefit as she slipped through the last few lasers.

She smiled, proud of herself as she came out of the other side in front of the stand with the rock on it.

“Nice, Waves, now just dismantle the security on that thing and get out of there,” Nicole said.

“Okay,” Waverly said, bending down a little bit to look at the pin pad on the front of the stand. Before they left, Chrissy had given her stud earrings that doubled as an electrical override. She took one off her ear and stuck it to the pad, holding her wrist up and typing a code into her watch. The watch beeped three times before there was a short buzzing sound and the pad died. Waverly smiled in glee, clasping her hands in front of her in joy as she looked at what appeared to be a simple stone, in awe.

It was flat and plain looking with ragged edges like it had been chiseled out of a tablet or wall. The bracelet on her wrist vibrated, symbols lighting up along the edge as she slowly reached towards the stone. Her mouth felt dry, hand shaking and eyes entranced with the stone. The closer her hand got, the more the bracelet vibrated.

“Wow,” she whispered to herself.

Then all she heard was Nicole yelling, “Waverly!”, before everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waverly rides Nicole for a spell. Enjoy. Special thanks to my beta [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for wading through my grammatical errors.

“Shapiro, who the _hell_ was that?” Nicole hissed frantically into her ear piece as she grabbed her jacket and burst out of the closet. The two guards on the outside looked confused as Nicole ran down the opposite side of the hall while shrugging the jacket over her shoulders. Quickly, she tucked her shirt back in but left the bowtie loose around her neck.

“I don’t know,” Shapiro responded, voice a little shaken. “But Chrissy is still with her, she’s fine.”

“Yeah, for now,” Nicole growled, moving her gun from her ankle to her waistband where it was more accessible. She quietly cursed herself that she let Waverly be captured. She put her in a dangerous situation and she was ambushed. Nicole couldn’t keep her safe. 

The scar below her left breast throbbed with a phantom pain, and she tried to compose herself as she got to the main part of the ballroom. 

Clootie was still standing at the podium, reading about some painting that was on a stand next to her. Nicole glanced her way and Clootie looked up at her, smile crawling over her lips like a snake. Something at the base of Nicole’s neck tingled and she paused, staring back at her.

“Haught, they’re putting her in a car,” Shapiro said in her ear. 

“Fuck,” Nicole said, turning and walking as calmly towards the door as she could. “Make a note to look up Clootie. Where her money is going, where she gets it...everything.”

“You got it, Haught,” Shapiro said. “They got Earp in the trunk of a Fiat.”

As soon as Nicole was out of the compound, she broke into a run, skidding to a stop when she got the the street. The car they used to get there was gone, obviously, so Nicole ran over to a red Vespa that was parked against the sidewalk.

Nicole rolled her eyes. “When in Rome.”

***

Waverly huffed and elbowed the body that came up behind her, hearing a satisfying grunt in her ear. There was some kind of cloth bag over her head; even though some light leaked through every once in a while she couldn’t see anything. The hand grabbed her elbow again, rougher this time, and she grunted. Her hands were tied behind her and she could feel a thug on each side, leading her by her elbows to god knew where. The bracelet vibrated on Waverly’s wrist and Waverly rolled her eyes. Of all the times for it _not_ to act out. 

“Waves, you okay?” Chrissy whispered in her ear. 

Waverly just hummed as lowly as possible without drawing suspicion. Under the bag, Waverly felt like her breathing was ten times louder, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She could feel them move her outside, the chill of the air hitting her skin and making her shiver. She tried to pull on the binding on her wrist but it wouldn’t budge. It felt like a zip tie.

“Where are you taking me?” Waverly asked. It wouldn’t hurt to try after all. “Who are you?”

“Nice try, girly  
,” a deep voice chuckled. 

“Don’t fight them, Waves, I can see them on the satellite cameras, they’re outmanning you,” Chrissy said in her ear. “Haught is coming for you.”

Waverly rolled her eyes. “I don’t need her, I’ve got this!”

She pushed the bracelet against her one captor and she felt it buzz, the electricity shocking the guard on her left and sending him to the ground. Quickly she pushed it against the second guard and he fell with a ‘thump’ just as she bent down, caught the edge of the hood on her head between her knees and yanked it off. She blew the hair from her face as she came up to see another two guards charging at her. 

It looked like they were in the back of the house on some kind of loading dock, a red Fiat idling a few yards away. 

As the first guard ran up on her, she bent over so that her shoulder went right into his gut and pushed a rough exhale from him as he fell over her back. The second one was coming at them as she stood up quickly, headbutting the second one under the jaw and knocking him stunned to the ground. The two guards groaned in a surprised heap and Waverly was just about to dart out of there when another three guards materialized seemingly out of nowhere.

All three grabbed her at once and she couldn’t shake them or get the bracelet on them. They shoved the bag back over her head and lifted her up so her feet were off the ground. 

“Hey! Let! Me! _Go!_” she said as she struggled. 

But just like that, she was tossed into what she assumed was the trunk of a car.

“Waves, don’t panic, you’ve been shoved into the trunk of a car,” Chrissy said as the sound of the trunk closing rang sharp in her ears. 

“Great,” Waverly whispered, pulling her wrists against the restraints. She felt them give a little and tried to pull again but the plastic dug painfully into her wrists. Straining her mind for any training she might have had on breaking out of binds behind your back, Waverly managed to maneuver the black bag back over her head so she could see. Well, as well as one could see in the trunk of a car.

Through the backseat, Waverly could hear an engine revving behind the car and whoever was in the car started yelling.

“Waves, your hot partner is here to rescue you,” Chrissy said with far too much excitement. “Can you just get the trunk open? Kick where the latch would be. It’s a flaw in the design.”

“I don’t need to be _rescued_,” Waverly clarified through clenched teeth as she arranged herself in the small trunk so that her foot was against the door of the trunk. She pulled back her leg and quickly kicked her heel into the trunk. She could feel it give a little bit, even as pain bloomed through her heel. 

The sound of a bullet ricocheting off the metal of the car made Waverly jump, only to hear it followed by another symphony of gun shots.

“Nicole better not get herself shot,” Waverly muttered to herself as she kicked at the trunk again. Finally there was a click of metal breaking and the trunk popped open just as they hit a bump, sending Waverly’s body jumping in the trunk helplessly. “Balls!”

Nicole, of course, was on the back of a red Vespa, steering with one hand while holding her gun in the other. Her eyes were hard and focused on the car as she took another shot. Waverly’s heart fluttered from seeing the other woman again, even if it had only been a few minutes. Relief flooded through her veins at the sight of her. That was, until the car swerved and Waverly had to duck quickly as the bullet hit the open trunk.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, babe,” Nicole called, still managing to shoot Waverly a charming smile even as she swerved to avoid a bullet being shot at her. “Alright, I’m going to come up and you’re going to jump on. Okay?”

“I’m a little...tied up,” Waverly said, trying to pull her hands apart again. She was really going to have to talk to Nicole about these pet names. Every ‘baby’ or iteration thereof sent a thrill down her spine and a deep pull in her belly.

“Alright, I got you,” Nicole said. She flattened herself down on the Vespa and accelerated quickly. Waverly got to her knees and did her best to balance, leaning as far out of the car as she could in an awkward attempt to get closer to Nicole so she could get out of the car. 

Nicole shot at the mirror of the car, then she swerved back behind it. She leaned forward, looping her arm around Waverly’s waist and dragging her over her own knees. Waverly landed with a gasp, flailing a little as the Vespa swerved, before Nicole pulled her roughly upright across her lap, wrapping the arm holding the gun around Waverly’s waist, until Waverly practically straddled Nicole. She maneuvered herself until she could tighten her thighs around Nicole’s hips to stay in place, face inches away from Nicole’s. 

She smirked at her, looking Waverly up and down pointedly, voice low and rough. “Hey, baby, if you wanted a ride you just had to ask nicely.”

Waverly hated how the proximity and Nicole’s innuendo made her practically throb. She frowned and rolled her eyes, hoping it hid the blush rising up her neck and the sudden heat between her thighs. If they weren’t actively driving, she might have just grabbed her face and kissed her.

“Can you just cut me loose please?” Waverly hissed.

Nicole gestured uselessly with the hand holding the gun as if she was looking for somewhere to put it. Her eyes fell to Waverly’s cleavage. “Here, hold this for a sec.”

Waverly yelped when Nicole put the gun down the front of her cleavage, the metal of the gun warm from use. She blushed but didn’t have time to stutter out her distaste of the situation before Nicole reached into her boutonniere and pulled out a switchblade with a wiggle of her eyebrows. 

With a quick flick of her wrist, Nicole used the knife to cut the zip tie. Waverly’s hands tingled and got warm as the blood rushed back to them. She moved her fingers and rolled her wrists. 

“Shit,” Nicole muttered, tossing the knife aside as she gripped the handles again, swerving the Vespa just in time for a bullet to ricochet off the side as they turned down a small alley. There was a metallic grinding sound and a pop, and the back of the Vespa slid forward as the bike started tilting towards the ground. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

Nicole picked Waverly up by the waist, seemingly on instinct, and hopped off the bike just as it went down. Waverly wiggled in her arms, both impressed and annoyed by how easily Nicole could pick her up and maneuver her.

“Wow, she’s stronger than I thought,” Chrissy whispered as Nicole put her down without a second thought. 

“We gotta get outta here,” Nicole muttered, grabbing Waverly’s hand and pulling her further down the alley where a man on a Vespa was turning the corner. She dropped Waverly’s hand and pulled the gun back out of the front of Waverly’s dress, stepping in front of the Vespa. “_Fermare! Dammi la tua Vespa!_”

“She speaks _Italian_?” Waverly and Chrissy whispered at the same time.

The man practically jumped off of the Vespa, hands in the air as he yelled something at her that Waverly couldn’t understand. Nicole put the gun back in her pants and took the handle of the Vespa as Waverly ran up to her. 

_”Scusate. Grazie. Lo lascio al museo,”_ she said to the man who looked distressed. Waverly ran barefoot down the alley towards Nicole who got on the Vespa. Sure enough, the sound of revving cars was getting closer and as Waverly got on behind Nicole. As the car was just barely rounding down the alley, Nicole was taking off down the other way.

Waverly quickly wrapped her arms around Nicole’s waist to stop herself from falling off. Her jacket smelled like vanilla and gunpowder and Waverly buried her nose in it. They made a quick turn down another alley that brought them out to another street bordering a river. Waverly listened, but she couldn’t hear the other car anymore and breathed a sigh of relief. She instead looked out at the Arno river as the moonlight reflected on its surface. 

She could feel Nicole’s gun in the front of her pants and rested her hand above it where she could feel her stomach flex with each turn of the bike.

It had always been a dream to visit Italy and now here she was. Kidnapped, shot at and shoved into a trunk. Not quite as romantic as she had initially imagined the whole thing, but at least she was here.

Nicole drove them over a bridge, past a roundabout and up a hill until they pulled into an empty parking lot. She drove past the pole barriers and a statue on a platform and towards the edge of the lookout where she parked the Vespa. Waverly got off first, feeling the asphalt beneath her bare feet as she looked out at the view. 

The lights of the city sparkled below them, particularly along the river where the streetlights were brightest. Brunelleschi's dome stood out among the skyline, lights all around it to make sure no one missed it.

Nicole walked away from Waverly for a moment, hands on her hips and eyes on the ground like she was thinking. Waverly crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.

“Nicole-”

She spun quickly, finger to her lips to tell Waverly to be quiet. Waverly’s frown deepened and she scoffed. Nicole was telling her to _shut up_? How dare she. Waverly wasn’t some rookie to be talked down to.

“Hey, I don’t appreciate-”

Nicole quickly ran over to her and put her finger to Waverly’s lips, eyes wide. “I know, baby, I missed you too.”

Waverly pushed away Nicole’s hand and opened her mouth to talk again but Nicole was shaking her head so hard, Waverly was a little concerned it might pop off. Nicole began to type something out on her watch as she kept talking.

“I’m going to take you back to the hotel and we’ll take a bath and just relax, okay? It’s close by, it’s right across the river,” Nicole said, turning her wrist so Waverly could see her watch.

_I’m worried you might be bugged_, Nicole’s message said.

_No way,_ Waverly mouthed back at her. 

Nicole cupped Waverly’s face in her hands and effectively shut her up. Waverly’s mind raced, completely at a loss for words as Nicole ran her thumbs over her cheekbones and fingers caressed behind her ear. She nodded once, seemingly satisfied as her hands carded through Waverly’s hair to cup the back of her head, fingers massaging her scalp for a moment. Slim, dexterous fingers made their way to the back of Waverly’s neck, feeling the skin gently and moving to just barely brush her collarbones before Nicole nodded again.

Waverly’s entire body felt like it was tingling, goosebumps exploding over her skin with every touch of Nicole’s fingers. The deep stirring in her belly that hadn’t quite gone away all night got more and more annoying with each second. 

“Is she gonna kiss you?” Chrissy asked. “Kiss her!”

Just as that image pushed its way to the forefront of Waverly’s mind, Nicole turned back to her watch and pushed a couple of buttons. The face glowed red and Nicole used it to scan her body head to toe. Waverly watched as Nicole sunk to her knees in front of her and blushed so deeply it felt like her entire body was on fire. 

As soon as she was done scanning Waverly’s body, Nicole popped back to her feet.

“You’re clean,” she sighed, looking back up at Waverly with a smile that quickly turned serious. “But we’re still not sure how they knew we were going to be there. Makes me think there’s a mole.”

“In the FBI?” Waverly whispered, heart stopping. “How do I know it’s not you?”

“Or the CSIS,” Nicole scoffed. “I’m constantly checking myself for bugs. You should be too.”

Waverly tightened her arms around her body. “Well, how do I know it’s not you. You sent me in that room alone.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

“No, I’m serious,” Waverly said, deciding to dig in her heels a little bit. She could see the twinge of irritation on Nicole’s face and wanted to see how far she could push _her_ for once. “How do I know this secret contact of yours isn’t one of these goons throwing me into trunks? You did leave me alone in that room.”

“Yeah, and I was coming after you five minutes later,” Nicole said. “You were the only one who could get in that room. Whatever, I don’t know why I’m arguing this with you.” Nicole put her finger to her ear like she was listening to something and shook her head. “Shapiro still doesn’t have an ID on any of those idiots who tried to take you.” Suddenly Nicole’s face changed and she gently ean her hands down Waverly’s arms that were still crossed tightly in front of her chest. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Waverly said softly, letting herself relax a little bit under Nicole’s touch. 

“They didn’t hurt you?” Nicole asked, gently pulling Waverly’s arms out from the knot around her body and lightly traced down her forearms to her wrists. There were some red marks left behind from the zip ties on her skin but they didn’t hurt. Still, Nicole’s fingers soothed over the indents and Waverly shivered. Misinterpreting Waverly’s bodily reaction to her, Nicole shrugged off her tux jacket and draped it over Waverly’s shoulders. “Come on. We have to make sure Mattie is okay. We’ll get you some shoes too.”

Waverly just nodded, pulling the jacket around her and looking out at the skyline again. It was beautiful and romantic. Just how Waverly had always imagined when she looked at the pictures in books. She looked behind her at the statue of David, gazing out at the same city that he looked at every day. Waverly wondered if he got bored of the view and wondered what kind of conversations he must overhear. The fighting families, the romantic moments...the people stopping by with nefarious purposes. With one last look out at the city, Waverly turned and followed Nicole back to the Vespa.

***

They were about two blocks away from Mattie’s shop when they both realized something was wrong. They could smell it before they saw it. 

“Fuck.”

The smell of burning books was unmistakable as it permeated through the damp air. Waverly’s stomach twisted, bile rising up in her throat the closer they got. 

“Nicole,” she whispered over Nicole’s shoulder as the night air whipped her in the face. 

“I know,” Nicole said back, twisting the throttle to go as fast as she could. They could see the flames before they turned the corner where the bookshop was and Waverly gripped her tighter. They quickly pulled up in front of and jumped off the Vespa.

Flames were visible through the windows, licking up the sides of the bookshelves but not quite at the windows yet.

“Mattie!” Waverly yelled helplessly.

Nicole pulled off her cumberbund and pressed it in front of her nose and mouth before running into the bookshop.

“Nicole!” Waverly cried, screaming in frustration.

“Don’t you dare go in there, Waves,” Chrissy said, loud in her ear. “You’re no good to anyone there.”

“Tell that to Nicole who just ran into a raging fire!” Waverly said, voice cracking as her stomach turned in worry. Each second felt like an hour as she waited for any sign of Nicole or Mattie. But the only thing she could hear was the crackle of flames as the fire consumed hundreds upon hundreds of ancient books. She imagined Nicole and Mattie in there, trapped behind a wall of fire, crying for help. “I can’t just stand here, Chrissy.”

“Waverly-!”

Waverly ran to the entrance of the bookshop, the heat of the fire hitting her in the face before she even breached the door. She went to reach for the door handle but as her hand closed around the metal she screamed, pulling her hand back, the skin already angry and blistering. 

The door suddenly swung open and Waverly stumbled back as Nicole pushed her way out of the front.

“Waves! What are you doing?” 

Nicole gripped her hand and pulled Waverly away from the store as more smoke billowed out, the sounds of sirens in the distance.

Nicole bent over as she coughed and Waverly ducked her head, trying to see her face. She cupped Nicole’s cheeks with her hands and lifted her face up to meet her own, ignoring the stinging heat of her palm. 

“Nicole, are you okay?” Waverly breathed, thumbs brushing over the ash on Nicole’s cheeks. Her eyes were red and bloodshot and skin hot to the touch. “Mattie.”

Nicole put her hands over Waverly’s and shook her head. Waverly was sure she was going to be sick. “We gotta get outta here before the fire department comes. Or someone else.”

They both got on the Vespa and Nicole quickly drove them away. When they were a safe distance away, Nicole stopped. She slipped off the Vespa and reached inside her shirt, pulling something out. She held her hand open in front of Waverly. Sitting on her upturned palm was a small, blue folded crane, slightly crumpled from Nicole clutching it in her fist.

“S.W.A.N,” Nicole whispered, eyes never leaving Waverly’s. “It was fucking S.W.A.N.”

Waverly’s blood ran cold and she got off of the Vespa, eyes glued to the ground. This was all her fault. She looked down at the bracelet on her wrist and her entire stomach twisted around itself like noodles around a fork. She shook her head.

“This is my fault,” Waverly whispered, running a distraught hand through her hair. “This is _my_ fault.”

“Waves,” Nicole said gently, reaching for her. 

Waverly batted Nicole’s hand away. “Mattie is-...they found us. They found _her_, and they burned her store down. They ki-...they _killed_ her,” Waverly gasped, hand to her stomach as she tried to stop herself from getting sick. “_I_ killed her.”

Nicole shook her head and held Waverly’s shoulders between her hands. “Earp, pay attention to me,” she said firmly. Waverly felt the panic rising in her chest, the bile rising in her throat until the sensation of Nicole running her fingers through her hair brought some of her attention back. Waverly looked up into big brown eyes and let out a small breath. “Are you with me?”

Waverly nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good. Now listen, this job sucks,” Nicole said. “It sucks and sometimes people get hurt. But we have to keep it together or even more people will get hurt. Okay?”

Letting out a shaky breath, Waverly nodded and felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “I just-...I did this.”

“You didn’t,” Nicole assured her. “You didn’t. You can’t think that or it will chew you up from the inside out. Okay, Earp?”

Waverly collapsed into Nicole’s front, arms folded against her chest as her arms enveloped her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Nicole’s words rumbled in her chest and Waverly felt them wash over her. For a moment, Waverly felt a wave of relief flood her. Her body sagged into Nicole’s chest and the warmth that seeped through her veins made more tears spring to her eyes. The moment of catharsis only lasted a second before shame heated Waverly’s cheeks and made her push away from Nicole. She brushed her tears away with the back of her hands and turned away from Nicole.

“I just want to get this...this…_fucking_ thing off,” Waverly said, shaking her wrist with the bracelet on it. “It’s really fucking with my first trip to Europe.”

She banged the bracelet on a nearby street lamp and it buzzed against her wrist for a moment before a holographic picture popped out of it from some unseen source in the bracelet. Frowning at it, she looked back up at Nicole who had her eyes glued to the picture.

“What is that?” Nicole said, stepping closer. “Is that Germany?”

Waverly looked at the shape of the land and nodded. She tried to touch the map but it glitched out as soon as her finger touched it and she pulled her hand away. Instead she gestured towards the blinking symbol on the map. “That’s the rune, the key.”

“Did S.W.A.N. get the other key?” Nicole asked. 

“I don’t know I was a little busy getting kidnapped,” Waverly snapped. Nicole ignored her outburst and used her watch to take a picture of the map. Waverly shook the bracelet again to try and get the hologram to go away. It just glitched again.

“Didn’t Mattie say she had a sister in Germany?” Nicole said.

Waverly let the bracelet fall to her side and the hologram went away. “You think she knows something?”

“I think it’s worth a try,” Nicole said.

Suddenly, the sick feeling came back to Waverly’s stomach and she shook her head. “I can’t. She might get hurt. I’d have to tell her I killed her sister.”

“Waves, you didn’t kill her sister,” Nicole said. “And if we don’t _try_, Mattie won’t be the only one dead. We have to at least try. And now that we know there’s people on our tail we can keep her safer.”

“Fine,” Waverly said, even if Nicole’s assurances didn’t do anything to make her feel better.

“I have to make some calls,” Nicole said. “I have somewhere we can go until then.”

“Where?” 

Nicole gave Waverly a thin version of her usual cocky smile. “Highly classified, Miss Earp.”

Waverly rolled her eyes. “That’s _Agent_ Earp.”

“_Agent_ Earp,” Nicole corrected as she got back on the Vespa. “Now let’s go to Germany.”

***

“So all Chrissy can talk about is how you and Haught should fuck,” Wynonna said into Waverly’s ear piece. Waverly’s cheeks heated as she looked across the store at Nicole over the rack of souvenir t-shirts. Nicole was wearing a backwards baseball cap with an Italian flag on the bill and sunglasses. She was still wearing her tux pants and her soot stained white shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows and top two buttons undone. Waverly was wearing some sweatpants Nicole had in her backpack that they had gone back for, and Nicole’s sweatshirt. The pants were too long so she had to roll them up, but anything was better than that heavy, mostly ruined dress.

Nicole had wrapped her burned hand with a bandage, making it hard to grab things, but thankfully it wasn’t bad enough that she’d have to wear it for too long.

They had to catch a train later in the day and decided looking as much like tourists as possible would be the best way to go. So they went to the closest tourist trap store to the apartment that Nicole said the FBI kept for such situations. 

“Chrissy is ridiculous,” Waverly said, looking back down at the shirts. They all had some kind of Italian phrase bedazzled across the front. She should have known calling Wynonna would lead to this conversation. She just wanted to talk to her sister and ended up talking about Nicole. Again. “Did you not hear the part where I’m responsible for a murder?”

“You’re not responsible,” Wynonna said through a mouthful of...something. “I hate to agree with Haught, but she’s right. There’s always collateral damage in this job. You can’t let it get to you. For the better good or...whatever.”

“What if we’re no better than the bad guys?” Waverly whispered. “What if we think we’re doing this for the greater good but we’re just as bad as everyone else?”

“You can’t think that way, baby girl,” Wynonna said. “Otherwise you won’t even get out of bed ever.”

Waverly pulled a bright pink shirt with an Italian flag embroidered on the front with ‘Ciao!’ in cheap plastic jewels over it. As much as it would be hilarious to try and get Nicole to wear it, she knew Nicole would rather die first.

“How do you do this?” Waverly asked, putting the shirt back on the rack. 

“Well, you may not know this, but I often find comfort in alcohol,” Wynonna said.

Wavery sighed and moved on to another rack. This time she pulled out a shirt that had the torso of David over the shirt front, and she snorted. It was loud enough to get Nicole’s attention from across the store and she looked up. Waverly held it up for Nicole who just wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

Putting it back on the rack, Waverly went back to Wynonna. “I just wasn’t expecting this mission to be so...complicated.”

“You never do,” Wynonna said.

“May I remind you that it’s your fault this is happening?” Waverly whispered. “You’re the one who stole this thing without the proper precautions.”

“Tomato, tomatoh,” Wynonna said. “You’re the one flirting with Haught through all of Europe. I knew you needed to go out, but jesus.”

“I’m not flirting,” Waverly said quickly. “She’s flirting. I’m the innocent party here.”

“Sure sure, not the way Chrissy is making it sound,” Wynonna said. 

Waverly sighed in frustration and pulled a simple black shirt with a pocket over the left breast, the David popping out of the top of the pocket. 

“I’m pretty sure Chrissy is making a video of your relationship from your eye cam,” Wynonna continued.

“That can’t be true,” Waverly said, before grabbing another scarcely decorated shirt for herself.

“Well you might be in for a surprise when you two get back,” Wynonna said. “What’s the deal with her anyways? Do you need me to talk to her? Threaten her?”

“There is no _deal_ with her,” Waverly said, eyes darting back to Nicole who was picking out a zip up jacket. “She’s just...annoying.”

“You’re not lusting for her? Or whatever?” 

Waverly blushed. “I-...no.”

“Sounded like a yes.”

“It’s a no.”

“Listen, I just need you to give me a tip so I know where to put my money in the company pool,” Wynonna said. “I don’t have anything better to do since I’m _grounded_.”

“Hold on, there’s a _pool_? About me and Nicole?” Waverly squeaked. 

“It’s just a little one,” Wynonna said. “Dolls has money on you two getting together.”

Waverly scoffed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Put money on ‘no’.”

“Okay, but if I lose I’ll never forgive you.”

“You won’t,” Waverly said. Nicole started to walk towards her and Waverly sighed. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, be safe, baby girl,” Wynonna said. “Have fun. But not too much fun. I want to win that pool.”

“Bye!” Waverly said, before hanging up on Wynonna with a button on her watch. 

“Caio, Bella,” Nicole smiled at Waverly and she blushed. Nicole held up a black sweatshirt with ‘Florence’ written across the front, the bands around the wrists the color of the Italian flag. “Got a sweatshirt for you.”

“What if I just wanted to keep this one?” Waverly said, putting the hood over her head. It was so big that it flopped over the front of her eyes and Nicole chuckled. She pushed it back a little from Waverly’s eyes and she brushed Waverly’s forehead with her fingers to push some hair away from her eyes. 

“I think it’s a little big for you,” Nicole said. Waverly’s cheeks flushed at the tender gesture and she just held up the shirt.

“I found you a shirt,” Waverly said uselessly. 

“Cute,” Nicole said, taking it from Waverly and draping it over her arm with the sweatshirt. “Come on. There’s a shop with pants next door, then we should head to the train station.”

“Okay,” Waverly said, shoving her hands in the front pocket of the sweatshirt to keep herself from reaching out for Nicole. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and happy week before the holidays! Hope everyone is ready to snuggle up with a cup of hot coco and read some filth. I (most likely) will not be posting next week with some other obligations plus the holidays, so apologies for that. But at least I'm leaving you on a sexy note. 
> 
> Special thanks to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being my beta even though I have no idea how to ride a motorcycle.

“Is this...it?” Waverly asked as they both peered into the small train cabin that was supposed to be their home for the next thirteen hours. The cabin was so narrow that Waverly was sure both of them couldn’t stand in it at the same time. At least, not unless they were all over each other.

She blushed at the thought.

“Your room, princess,” Nicole teased, giving Waverly a big fake curtsey. Waverly pulled down the brim of Nicole’s hat over her eyes and walked into the cabin. Nicole just chuckled and followed her in, closing the cabin door behind her. 

There were two plush benches that faced each other and a luggage rack above, a neat stack of starched white sheets tucked into the corner. Nicole sat on one of the benches near the window. “Apparently these fold into a bed.”

Waverly practically fell over Nicole’s long legs into the bench across from her. “Still bigger than my first apartment.”

Nicole chuckled. “Where was your first apartment?”

“Well I had the bright idea to move closer to campus,” Waverly said, setting her backpack on the bench next to her. “It only lasted a semester before I moved back into the Homestead with Wynonna. It was tiny and had a rat problem.”

“Let’s hope that this train doesn’t have a rat problem then,” Nicole said. She stood up and started back towards the door. “I’m going to go do a quick surveillance. Lock the door. Don’t answer if anyone knocks.”

“I’m not supposed to let you in?” Waverly said with a raised eyebrow. 

“You know what I mean, Earp,” Nicole said with a wry smile. “I’ll be back before you know it. Try not to miss me.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Waverly said, as Nicole closed the door. Even if as soon as Nicole was gone, Waverly felt a certain desire to follow her. Why should Nicole get to do all the surveillance anyway? She was an agent too. Frustrated and needing something to do, Waverly started to pull out the very small bed. 

“And there was only one bed,” Chrissy said, smirk apparent in her voice even through the headset. Waverly groaned, reached over to lock the door and looked outside the train window as they began to move. 

“You’re being ridiculous. Wynonna told me that everyone at the office thinks we’re going to get together, thanks to you.”

“That’s not thanks to me, that’s thanks to _you two_,” Chrissy pointed out. “I’m just the bearer of good news.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Waverly said, even if her voice wavered in a way that wasn’t convincing at all.

“Waverly, you know I love you,” Chrissy started. “And all joking aside...I can tell you have a thing for Haught.”

Waverly felt her stubbornness dissolve. “I mean...how could you not,” she mumbled, smiling as she looked down at the jeans she had just bought a couple of hours ago. She rolled her eyes and finished pulling the bed down until it clicked. “She’s...very attractive.”

“Mhm,” Chrissy said. “I mean that much is obvious. But she also seems super sweet.”

“She can be,” Waverly chewed the inside of her cheek, eyes wandering from pulling the sheets onto the mattress to the passing landscape. “But lest we forget when she _hit_ on me while she was already with someone. Someone she eventually married.”

“What if you two are meant to be and she couldn’t help herself despite being previously involved?” 

“Chrissy, that’s not how this works,” Waverly said. “Even if she thought I was the love of her life that’s not okay. I almost-...I almost went to her hotel room that night.”

“And you couldn’t because she was in a relationship, but now she isn’t,” Chrissy said. 

“Chris-”

“Listen, I’m just saying have a talk with her. Find out what happened with her relationship and why she did what she did. Besides not being able to resist your hot bod,” Chrissy said. “At least have a talk, so you can both put it behind you.”

Waverly hummed and ran her hands over her thighs. “I guess so. I’m surprised you haven’t heard anything in the rumor mill about Nicole and her wife.”

“Ex,” Chrissy clarified. “And I know, I’m ashamed. It must have been kept under wraps for a reason.”

There was a knock on the cabin door and Waverly sighed. “Alright, well wish me luck I guess.”

“Good luck!”

“Who is it?” Waverly called to the door.

“Haught. Nicole Haught,” Nicole said lowly. 

Waverly rolled her eyes and reached over to unlock the door. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re definitely not as cool as James Bond.”

“I won’t argue with that. I definitely don’t have as many cool cars as he does,” Nicole said. The bed took up the entire car so Waverly sat at the head, leaning back against the wall of the car. It was impossible to sit on the opposite bench without your feet on the bed. Nicole crawled up on the bed and sat next to Waverly, their knees knocking as she got comfortable. “I knew I was getting slim pickings of accommodations with the late booking, but damn.”

Waverly playfully kicked the side of Nicole’s foot. “Next time I expect the VIP car.”

Nicole lifted up a bottle of wine and two glasses. “How does wine do for now?”

“Drinking on the job?” Waverly asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

“We’re on our break,” Nicole said as she handed Waverly a glass. She poured her a hearty glass and one for herself. “Plus, you can’t leave Italy without drinking some wine.”

“Fine,” Waverly said, as the sharp scent of the wine reached her nostrils. “If you think it’s fine.”

“The train is secure, we don’t have anything to really worry about,” Nicole shrugged as she took a sip. “Plus, I’ve done some of my best work drunk.”

Waverly snorted. “That’s comforting.”

She took a sip and let the thick liquid roll over her tongue and down her throat, stomach warming almost instantly.

“I’m sorry it’s not your drink of choice. Whiskey if I remember properly,” Nicole said over her wine glass with a small smile. 

Just like that, Waverly was hurtled back to that conference where Nicole made her feel like the only person in the room. That was...until her girlfriend showed up. Maybe Chrissy was right, maybe she should talk to her about all of...that. But she couldn’t just blurt it out, could she? 

“So what made you pursue a career with the government?” Waverly asked. Good. Starting easy.

Nicole shrugged. “I wanted to be a cop when I was growing up.”

“Bet your parents loved that,” Waverly teased.

“No, they hated it,” Nicole laughed at her own joke. “Well, anyways, I spent most of high school just fucking around. Smoking and messing around with pretty girls. The usual.” Waverly raised an eyebrow at her and Nicole smirked before continuing. “I went to college and all that, and then those military recruiters fucking got me.”

“You were in the Army?” Waverly asked, mind suddenly flooded with images of Nicole in uniform.

“Marines special forces,” Nicole said without a hint of brag in her voice. Much to Waverly’s surprise. “I was only there for a couple of years before I was recruited to be an agent.”

“Well aren’t you fancy,” Waverly said, swirling the wine in her glass.

“Nah, just lucky,” Nicole winked. “Plus I worked my ass off because I was one of the only women and I wanted to show all the guys up.”

Waverly laughed. “That definitely doesn’t surprise me.”

“So how did you get into this job, then?” Nicole asked. 

“My sister came home drunk with a gunshot wound and I made her tell me what she did. I was expecting something illegal so I was very surprised,” Waverly said, tilting her head in thought. “Anyways, I had her help me get in with the right people, took the right classes in school and here I am.”

“Now _that_ is way fancier than what I did,” Nicole said as she finished off her glass of wine. 

“Hardly,” Waverly said, holding out her glass for a refill. She could already feel the alcohol thick on her tongue and making her brave. She always got in trouble when she decided to be brave. “How many missions have you been on?”

Nicole hummed. “Highly classified.”

“I don’t think that’s really a thing. I think you just like saying it,” Waverly said.

“That’s possible, but you’ll never know,” Nicole teased.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Waverly said without thinking, cheeks reddening. Nicole’s eyebrows raised into her hairline and Waverly cursed the wine in her system. 

“You think I’m cute.”

It wasn’t a question. Waverly just shrugged and tried to play it off. “That seems to be the general consensus.”

“Well I’m never going to complain about being called cute by the prettiest girl I’ve ever met,” Nicole said before taking a long sip. 

Waverly had never been more red. She was convinced. And Chrissy squealing in her ear certainly wasn’t helping. It would be so easy for Waverly to close the distance between them and kiss Nicole senseless. She wanted to. She could feel the need pumping through her veins and urging her to lean forward and breathe her in. But in the back of her mind she thought about that night at the convention when Nicole hit on Waverly in front of her girlfriend. Waverly would slowly bring it up and get it all out in the open. Then, either her attraction could be let free or it would be completely dampened.

“What happened?” Waverly asked softly as she took another sip of her wine. “That night? At the conference?”

Or she could just dive right in.

Nicole blinked at Waverly in surprise for a moment before she looked back down at her glass with a small smile. She let out a wry chuckle and shook her head. “The infamous conference. That’s what Shae used to call it.”

“Used to?”

“Well we did break up about,” Nicole tilted her head like she was thinking. “A year ago. I um...I don’t know. I don’t have an excuse really. Shae and I had just broken up in the hotel room the day before and...it was awkward.”

“She called you her girlfriend,” Waverly pointed out.

Nicole sighed. “I...we weren’t really. But we had _just_ broken up. It was in poor taste for me to be talking to you like that. And when Shae saw us, she was caught off guard. I just…” Nicole blushed and looked quickly at Waverly before looking away. “I’m going to say something you’re not going to believe but...I saw you and I just couldn’t leave the conference without talking to you. Something about you just drew me in and-”

With another shrug of her shoulders and a shake of her head, Nicole looked back up at Waverly just as it was getting harder to swallow.

“I would be lying if I said I hadn’t...noticed you throughout the weekend too,” Waverly admitted. “The hotshot FBI agent.”

Nicole tipped her head back in a laugh and Waverly watched her throat flex, creamy skin all open and on display. She finished off her glass of wine.

“Eh, I was just a cocky shit back then anyways,” Nicole said, finishing off her own glass and reaching for the bottle again.

“And you aren’t now?” Waverly joked as she held out her glass for a refill. 

“Comparatively? No,” Nicole said with a wink. 

“You said you two broke up that weekend but then you got married?” Waverly asked. 

“We had been done for a while...you know?” Nicole said, face getting serious again. “Before we even broke up. But when we got back from the conference, me and my partner got assigned to a mission that...felt like a death mission.” Nicole looked down at her glass. “I didn’t think I was going to come back. The actual mission was to assume I wasn’t going to come back and that makes people kinda sentimental, you know? We made up and had a shotgun wedding in Vegas the weekend before I was supposed to leave.”

“Then you came back,” Waverly said softly.

Nicole nodded, smiling sadly. “Then I came back. Injured, but alive, and surprise surprise, we still didn’t work. I moved to a different office and here I am.”

“Injured?” Waverly said, eyes scanning Nicole’s body for any sign of serious injury. 

“Shot,” Nicole said with an ounce of pride in her voice that quickly faded, the cockiness she used as a shield fading as she took another long drink of her wine, draining the glass. “I was lucky. My partner...not so much.”

Nicole’s voice broke and Waverly’s fingers twitched in a need to reach out to her. Instead she finished off her own glass of wine, head sufficiently light and warmth buzzing through her veins.

“They get hurt?” she asked even if she was afraid of the real answer.

“Died,” Nicole said flatly. “Shot right in the head.”

“I’m sorry,” Waverly said, reaching for Nicole’s hand and entwining their fingers as she pulled it into her lap. She watched Nicole’s jaw tighten and neck tense, eyes staring blankly ahead before she shook her head.

“It’s not me you should be saying that to,” Nicole said, her empty wine glass tipping over on the bed as her other hand came up to rest under her breast as if she was feeling for something. Her voice sounded thick and her eyes glistened. “I’ve never quite forgiven myself for it.”

Waverly ran her thumb over Nicole’s hand. “I can say you shouldn’t feel responsible all I want but...I know that’s harder than it seems. I’ve been saying that to myself for years and-”

She thought of her father, being dragged out of their house when she was a kid. Killed in cold blood right in front of them. She thought of Willa. Nicole squeezed her hand in reassurance and Waverly went on. 

“My dad died when I was young. And my older sister, Willa, was...frankly she was a bitch to me. Blamed me for it for years. Then about...ten years ago we had a fight and I left and when I got back there was just...blood.” Waverly took a shaky breath and finished off her wine. “They couldn’t find who did it. Could never find her body.”

Nicole squeezed her hand like Waverly had done earlier. “I’m sorry.”

“I just wonder what would have happened if I was there. Maybe I could have stopped it,” Waverly mumbled.

“You were, what? A kid? No way,” Nicole said. “You could have been taken too. It’s better off that you weren’t there and you were safe. There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Taken...killed,” Waverly shrugged. “Then Wynonna took off and I didn’t see her for seven years.”

“None of that is your fault,” Nicole assured her softly. Waverly looked at their entwined hands and couldn’t help but smile a little, letting her wine glass rest against her leg as she ran her fingers over a scar on the back of Nicole’s hand.

“I guess.”

“It’s true,” Nicole said firmly, leaning a little more into Waverly. “I’m glad you left. Because you wouldn’t be this awesome agent and I would have never gotten the chance to work with you.”

Waverly’s smile widened and she looked up at Nicole, their faces closer than she had imagined.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said.

“I guess I’m glad I got to meet the amazing Agent Haught too,” Waverly said. “I’m glad you didn’t get killed.”

Nicole chuckled lightly. “Yeah, it’s pretty nice. Being here. With you.”

Waverly’s whole body felt like it was slowly being dipped into a warm bath as she looked up into brown eyes. The sunset was streaming through the window and made the edges of Nicole’s eyes look almost gold. Waverly felt like she was pulled towards her, like she was trying to get deeper in her eyes and maybe she was.

Their lips started to drift towards each other like magnets determined to connect. She could feel her heart beating through her whole body, blood rushing through her ears made it hard to concentrate and when she felt Nicole’s breath on her lips, Waverly snapped out of the daze. She jerked away and scrambled over Nicole’s legs to get off of the bed to stand up quickly, eyes wide and chest heaving as she stared at Nicole. Brown eyes looked back up at her, eyes dilated and cheeks pink.

Her mind was racing and there were a million things that Waverly wanted to say. _Needed_ to say, but the words were stuck in her throat and refused to budge. Instead of choking on them, Waverly said the first thing that came to mind.

“I-...need a sandwich,” Waverly turned on her heels and quickly walked out of the train cabin, quickly shutting the door behind her.

Standing in the small hallway of the train, Waverly let out a deep breath. The blood was still roaring in her ears and her heart was pounding like she’d run a marathon.

“Oh my god you two almost kissed,” Chrissy breathed. “It was _so close._ I was so excited I spilled popcorn everywhere.”

For that moment, Waverly had forgotten about Chrissy in her ear and eye, seeing every way Waverly was making a fool of herself.

“Why are you eating popcorn?” Waverly hissed as she started towards the dining car. Anything to put distance between her and Nicole. Specifically Nicole’s very enticing, very pretty lips.

“I thought something was about to happen so I prepared,” Chrissy said.

Waverly shook her head. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why not! You’ve vibed. You’ve clicked. Now all that’s left is the kissing,” Chrissy encouraged.

Waverly ignored her and ordered a bottle of water from the dining car. She handed him her cash as she tried to forget how Nicole smelled like vanilla. Warm vanilla. How Nicole made her feel safe even in the most dangerous of circumstances. She thought about her strong hands and how she could easily move Waverly from one place to another. It was when Waverly was thinking about how good Nicole’s body felt pressed up against her own that the water bottle and her change was put down on the counter in front of her.

Gathering both, Waverly said into her mic. “Okay. Agent Earp going dark. Only contact me in an emergency.”

Chrissy squealed. “I’m so excited for you. Have fun!”

There was a small beep and Waverly knew Chrissy was offline. She was alone. 

Waverly slipped her change into her pocket as she started back towards the train cabin. The throbbing heat between her thighs from the almost kiss with Nicole hadn’t gone away yet, making her jeans feel more and more restrictive with each step. 

She thought about Nicole, vulnerable in front of her as she talked about her last relationship and wondered at how quickly she forgave her. Nicole’s eyes, big and unsure, made Waverly melt and believe every word from her pretty lips. The wine still buzzed in her veins, making her brave, and with each step towards the train car she was more sure.

Waverly slipped through the cabin door and locked the door. Nicole was still sitting on the bed how they had been earlier, wine glass drained and bottle nowhere to be seen. They stared at each other for a moment, no sound in the cabin but the engine of the train and their breathing. She threw the water bottle on the opposite bench just as Nicole opened her mouth to talk.

“Waverly, I’m sorry, I-”

Without a second thought, Waverly crawled onto the bed and straddled Nicole’s hips, cutting off whatever she was going to say as their lips finally connected. Nicole tensed under her, hands uselessly laying on the bed, and Waverly just kissed her harder. It was like Nicole came to life under her, hands finding Waverly’s hips, desperate fingers tripping through the fabric of Waverly’s shirt as she brought her closer. 

Waverly was sure her heart was going to beat it’s way out of her chest. She could feel all the sexual tension that had been building between them sink deep in her belly and pull, making her press her hips tighter to Nicole’s stomach. Her head felt light, entire body on fire as her lips moved against Nicole’s.

Nicole pulled away for a second and Waverly chased her lips, her hands cupping Nicole’s cheeks and keeping her head in place as she kissed her deeper. Nicole hummed, squeezing Waverly’s hips for a moment before she pulled away again. 

“Wait, baby, wait,” Nicole mumbled. Waverly groaned but sat back more on her heels. Nicole licked her lips and took a moment to catch her breath before saying quickly. “Shapiro, I’m going dark. Only contact me in an emergency.”

Nicole nodded once before turning back to Waverly. Nicole’s hand slid up the back of Waverly’s shirt, pressed against the small of her back and drew their bodies close again, no space between them.

Waverly fully wrapped her arms around Nicole’s neck, keeping their bodies and faces close as she ran her tongue over the seam of Nicole’s lips. She could feel the other woman shiver under her and their tongues met, hot and slick. Her brain clicked into overdrive, entire body just needing to feel Nicole’s skin against her own. Her hands found their way under Nicole’s shirt and quickly pushed it up over her head.

Nicole chuckled and Waverly bit her lip and pulled just enough to turn Nicole’s laughter into a groan. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” Waverly breathed, looking down between them at Nicole’s breasts covered by a lacy black bra. 

“I am definitely not making fun of you, baby,” Nicole said as she pulled Waverly’s shirt off and threw it to the other side of the train car. 

“God, I hate it when you call me that,” Waverly mumbled, as she kissed across Nicole’s jaw and pulled her earlobe between her teeth.

“Oh, sorry, I’ll stop-”

Waverly held Nicole’s chin between her thumb and finger and pulled their faces back closer together. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Nicole quickly flipped them and the air was knocked from Waverly’s lungs when her back landed on the hard mattress. Her hands found the button of Nicole’s pants and she pulled. Nicole groaned into her mouth.

“Wait wait,” Nicole gasped, pushing herself up by her hands to hover over Waverly. She lay under her, panting and helpless as she watched Nicole pull away. “Baby, are you sure?”

Waverly nodded, lips parted as she looked down Nicole’s body. “I am so sure, Nicole.”

She looped her arms around Nicole’s neck and pulled herself up to meet her lips. They both sighed as they finally came together again. One of Nicole’s hands held Waverly up by her lower back and slowly lowered them back to the mattress. The cheap starched sheets were rough against her back, but that was quickly forgotten when Nicole’s hips pressed down into the seam of her jeans. 

Waverly shivered as Nicole’s lips kissed along her neck and she found her own hands drifting to the clasp of Nicole’s bra. She made quick work of it and Nicole pulled her arms out before reaching behind Waverly to rid her of hers too. Waverly wasted no time throwing hers to some unknown corner of the small car.

Nicole’s mouth kissed a path over her collarbone and to the hollow of her throat, licking and nipping at her skin. Waverly’s back arched towards Nicole’s mouth as it got lower and lower. The chilly air of the train hit the wet marks Nicole was leaving on her skin and raised goosebumps all over her. Or maybe it was the way Nicole was pressing down into her in a way that was just enough to make her breath stutter but not enough to bring her any sort of relief. Nicole’s mouth enveloped Waverly’s nipple and her hands found copper strands. She tugged as Nicole’s tongue smoothed over the stiff flesh. With a twist and pull of Waverly’s fingers in Nicole’s hair, she steered her over to the other nipple. 

Nicole pulled on Waverly’s jeans, the button popping free as she continued to kiss down Waverly’s belly and to the edge of her pants. In one quick motion, Nicole pulled down the zipper of Waverly’s jeans, slipped her arms behind her and pulled her pants down. Waverly went to kick away the jeans when she felt her knee connect with Nicole’s jaw and her teeth hit each other.

“Ow,” Nicole groaned. 

Waverly gasped, horrified, and sat up, Nicole sitting up on her knees. Waverly pulled Nicole’s hand away from her jaw where she was holding it and saw a red mark where her knee had connected. 

“I’m so sorry,” Waverly whispered. “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”

Nicole chuckled and shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“I kneed you!”

“It’s o_kay_, really,” Nicole insisted.

Waverly gingerly cupped Nicole’s hand in her jaw. “Let’s get you some ice.”

“No,” Nicole said, kissing her lightly. “I’m fine.”

“Come on, let me get you something-”

“Don’t you dare leave this bed, Waverly Earp,” Nicole husked, grabbing Waverly’s hips and jerking them towards her so that she fell back against the mattress again. “No little kick to the face is going to stop me right now.”

Waverly let out an unearthly moan as Nicole kissed her again, their tongues tangling together, She scrambled with the button of Nicole’s jeans, growling in annoyance that Nicole pulled away just as she got the zipper down. But her annoyance was soon forgotten when Nicole’s breath played hot against the front of her underwear.

“Gods,” Waverly breathed as Nicole kissed over the ever growing damp spot on her crotch. 

“Baby,” Nicole whispered. Waverly just whined as Nicole lifted her legs over her shoulders. “Baby, look at me.”

Waverly forced her eyes down and nearly combusted at the sight of Nicole between her legs, lips swollen and pupils blown. “Yes?”

“I want to-”

“Yes, please,” Waverly said, head falling back against the bed as the need between her legs grew. “_Please._”

In what felt like one smooth move, Nicole lowered Waverly’s legs to the bed and pulled her ruined underwear down her legs. Within a moment her legs were back over Nicole’s shoulders and she ran her tongue over her swollen sex. Waverly cried out at the sudden stimulation, her hips jumping towards Nicole’s face, so she slung her arm low on Waverly’s hips to keep her down. Waverly was so turned on she knew it wouldn’t take long. Not with how much tension had built up over the last few days between them. Not to mention their unfinished business from years ago and, honestly, just the fact that Waverly had been a pent up ball of sexual tension forever, with her lack of dating. Plus with whatever magic Nicole was doing with her tongue.

One hand gripped the edge of the mattress behind her head while the other flew to tangle in red hair. Waverly’s entire body felt like a tense wire, getting tighter and tighter, ready to snap.

“Jesus,” Waverly gasped as Nicole’s tongue swirled around her clit. 

Nicole pulled away for a moment. “You can just call me Nicole, you know. And for you, I’ll allow Nicky.”

Waverly rolled her eyes and scratched her nails along Nicole’s scalp. “Cocky even from between my legs.”

Nicole nipped lightly at the apex of her thigh and Waverly’s hips jumped. “Especially from between your legs.”

“Just shut up and-” The rest of her sentence was swallowed with a moan when Nicole’s hot tongue probed at her entrance. A thin sheen of sweat over her body made her skin glisten, muscles vibrating with each little touch and caress of Nicole’s hands.

Her orgasm hit her like a tidal wave. The warmth and pleasure crashed over her prone body and she released something between a whine and a moan as her body curled into herself, brow furrowed. Just as Nicole’s tongue was coaxing her from her high, Waverly felt her slip a finger into her still pulsing entrance. 

Nicole draped the rest of her body over Waverly’s and kissed her hard. Waverly tasted herself on Nicole’s lips, their kisses were sloppy and desperate, both just needing to be as close to the other as possible. Waverly gripped Nicole’s biceps as she fucked her, body immediately heating to a second orgasm.

When Nicole started using her hips to push herself even harder into Waverly, her jaw unhinged in a silent scream and she tightened her legs around Nicole’s hips. Her head fell to Waverly’s shoulder, her breathing unfocused as she pulled all the way out and slid a second finger into her fluttering sex.

“Baby,” Waverly said as she wrapped her arms completely around Nicole, head turning and pressing her face into the side of Nicole’s head. The warmth started at her toes, slow and pulsing, swelling and moving up her body. Her muscles rippled and tightened, breath catching in her throat as Nicole kissed her and swallowed her moans. Her orgasm exploded low in her stomach, vision blurring and time warping as she just completely gave into the feeling.

She panted, slowly coming to as she felt soft lips kissing all over her chest and neck. She hummed, limbs falling bonelessly onto the bed as Nicole’s sweat slick body completely covered hers. She could feel the rough denim of Nicole’s jeans on the inside of her thighs and wiggled a little. Waverly smiled, content, as she opened her eyes and saw brown eyes looking back at her.

A simple ‘wow’ slipped from her lips as she leaned down to kiss Waverly again. 

“Yeah, wow,” Waverly breathed as their lips slid together. They kissed slowly, like they had all the time in the world. Waverly could feel Nicole’s still wet fingers stroking her hip and she shivered, pulling Nicole even closer. 

Waverly reached down and slipped her finger into the band of Nicole’s underwear and snapped it against her skin. Nicole hissed and pressed her hips down into Waverly again. Pulling her lip between her teeth as she looked up at Nicole with a grin, Waverly slipped her hand into Nicole’s underwear and cupped her hot sex. 

Nicole groaned, hips jumping a little. She grabbed Waverly’s wrist and gently pulled it out, holding it up between them as her eyes darted to the bracelet with a playful smile on her face. 

“This thing isn’t going to turn on me...right?” Nicole husked.

Waverly’s mind blanked for a moment. She had completely forgotten about the dangerous technology around her wrist. For a moment it had just been her and Nicole in this stupidly tiny train cabin. It had been the European vacation with her loving partner that she had always hoped for. 

She swallowed thickly and nuzzled her nose against Nicole’s, arms looping around Nicole’s neck and pulling her back down.

“Not if you treat me good,” she teased, kissing her slowly.

“I haven’t already?” Nicole said with a raised eyebrow. 

Waverly gently nipped at Nicole’s chin and she settled her whole weight back over her.

“There’s still time.”

For now, Waverly tried to ignore how right it felt to have Nicole’s weight pressed down into her. How something inside her felt whole. It was probably just the orgasm talking. Or maybe...maybe this was the start of something. Waverly would worry about it after she rocked Nicole’s world. She used any remaining strength she had left to roll so that she was on top of Nicole, both of them laughing as they kissed. For now, this was good enough.

***

“What’s this from?”

Waverly brushed her thumb along a scar just below Nicole’s left eye and tangled their legs together. Their small cabin smelled like sex, the air thick.

Nicole’s eyes fluttered open, her eyelashes tickling Waverly’s thumb. “It’s-”

“If you say ‘highly classified’, I’m gonna-”

“Highly classified, Miss Earp,” Nicole joked.

Waverly growled and buried her face in Nicole’s chest, biting a little roughly at her collarbone.

“Ow! Hey, okay,” Nicole laughed, pulling away from Waverly who just followed and pulled Nicole against her again.

“Now, what’s that from?” Waverly tried again.

Nicole kissed Waverly lightly. “You’re wild, Earp.”

“You’re avoiding the question, Haught,” Waverly whispered back, cupping Nicole’s jaw in her hand and brushing the small bruise she had left earlier.

“Right, scar,” Nicole said, stroking some of Waverly’s hair away from her face. “Uh, my first mission. I got in a knife fight and the guy nicked me.”

Waverly blinked at Nicole. “You were stabbed in the face?”

“Not stabbed. More like...a scrape,” Nicole said with a dismissive shrug. 

“It’s still a knife to the face.”

“Coulda been worse,” Nicole said, just as Waverly’s fingers dipped between her breasts and over the scar under Nicole’s breast. “Bit like that.”

“Yeah,” Waverly said softly as she pressed herself closer to Nicole. She put her chin on top of Waverly’s head as they cuddled closer. It felt like a wave of exhaustion fell over Waverly at that point and she suppressed a yawn as she said, “You smell nice.”

Nicole chuckled. “Sleep, baby.”

“Okay,” Waverly muttered before drifting off to sleep.

***

Thousands of miles away, a warrior walked out of a tomb where they had been imprisoned for centuries. The tattoos on their arms glowing with purpose as they looked up at the sky. The world...smelled different. It smelled like death. 

If they listened hard enough, they could hear the screams of their ancestors. Of their world falling apart. 

They wrinkled their nose as a voice echoed in their ears. 

_Germany. _

That’s where they must go. That’s where they must kill and be killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thank you for being so patient through my little holiday hiatus. I truly appreciate it. Please note the new chapter count for this fic. For this chapter, you should grab a stein and put on your lederhosen. As always, thank you to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being my beta despite me going to Cats with her. A true rockstar.

The next morning, Nicole carefully snuck out of the small rickety bed, careful not to wake Waverly. As Nicole slipped her shirt back on she couldn’t help but stare at Waverly lying tangled among the sheets. Her hair was messy and tousled on her pillow, the natural golden highlights only made more apparent by the rising sun streaking through the window as they passed the German countryside.

Her heart squeezed in her chest at the sight, a not particularly unwelcome feeling, but one she wasn’t necessarily expecting. It had been a while since anyone made her feel this way. Like she was about to have a heart attack and keel over from the stupid emotions taking over her chest.

If Nicole actually believed in the supernatural, she might actually thing Waverly was an angel. An angel with a wild side, anyway, she reminded herself as she stretched her sore muscles. The small burn as she rolled her wrist made Nicole smile as she slipped out of the train car and closed the door with a small ‘click’.

She tapped a few buttons on her watch as she strode towards the breakfast cart, and her earpiece beeped to life. 

“Well hey there, playboy,” Eliza teased. “On your way to fuel up for round two?”

“Ha. Ha,” Nicole said despite the proud tug at her lips as she thought of Waverly lying spent in the bed. “I just wanted to check in. See if anything had happened.”

“Literally nothing,” Eliza said. “Which is both good and bad.”

“For now, it’s good,” Nicole said, as she looked around the dining cart. There were a couple of passengers standing at some tall tables and eating, but nothing suspicious. She ordered a tea for Waverly and coffee for herself. There wasn’t a lot as far as vegan options went for Waverly, so she just got some fresh rolls and jam to hold them over until they could get something more substantial. 

“So you’re treating your girl to breakfast in bed, that’s new,” Eliza observed.

“I’m not-...It’s not like-...She’s not-...” Nicole just blushed deeper each time she tried to argue and shook her head. “She deserves it.”

“You’re getting soft on me, Haught,” Eliza said. “Did you tell her about...you know?”

Nicole felt dread flow like ice through her veins. “No and...hopefully I won’t have to.”

Eliza let out a long whistle. “You know that’s never the case.”

“Well, I’m hoping.”

“Maybe you should just rip the bandaid off.”

“I’d rather not,” Nicole said as she approached their cabin. “Now I’m going dark again for a few minutes.”

“Ah, round two,” Eliza said. 

“As if we only had one round last night,” Nicole muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Bye!” Nicole heard the beep of Eliza going dark and carefully and quietly opened up the cabin door. As she slid it shut, Waverly began to stir. She hummed and stretched her arms over her head, the sheets sliding down to reveal pert breasts. Nicole found herself distracted, only pulling her eyes away when Waverly smiled at her. “Hey, sleepyhead.” 

Waverly crinkled her nose and Nicole handed her the tea as she toed off her shoes and crawled onto the bed. She settled cross legged and propped her coffee cup up in her lap. 

“Why the face?”

“Sleepyhead is kinda cutesy, don’t you think?” Waverly said as she sat up and the sheet pooled around her hips. 

“You are cute though,” Nicole pointed out, leaning over to kiss her softly. Waverly hummed, melting a little into the kiss before she whispered.

“I was hoping for something...sexier.”

“Sexier?”

“Yeah,” Waverly said, kissing Nicole again. 

Nicole would have called her anything in that moment if it kept Waverly kissing her like this. Slow and long and thick like they had all the time in the world. Like Waverly didn’t have a terribly important and dangerous piece of technology on her wrist that could potentially bring on a war to end all wars. Like Nicole wasn’t leaning into the little saucer of jam that she had brought with their bread.

“Oh,” Nicole said, pulling back to look at the slightly squashed rolls. She set the plate on the bed between them and wiped the jam off her shirt. “I brought us some breakfast.”

“Thank you, baby,” Waverly said, pecking Nicole’s lips one last time.

Nicole smiled. “See? Baby is cutesy too.”

Waverly smirked up at Nicole dangerously. “What would you prefer? Stud?”

Nicole felt herself blush, nearly swallowing her tongue with the way Waverly was looking up at her. “I’d tell you everything I prefered if we weren’t due to arrive in an hour.”

“Alright, _stud_,” Waverly said as she picked up a butter knife and spread some jam on her roll. “Let’s hurry up and eat so I can get the cliff notes version.”

***

The only sound Waverly heard when she went back online was Chrissy squealing. She couldn’t even be upset, smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She stuffed her hands into the front pocket of Nicole’s hooded sweatshirt that she’d stolen, to try and keep herself from flailing. If Chrissy was here with her, they’d both be bouncing up and down, clutching onto each other’s hands and making incoherent sounds at each other.

Wynonna had always said they sounded like two cats fighting.

“How was it?” Chrissy finally gasped out.

Waverly looked up from where she was sitting in the train station at Nicole with her backwards baseball cap and sunglasses, talking to a man at a snack stand. Deeming it safe to talk about her, Waverly cracked a wide smile.

“It was _amazing_,” she sighed, feeling goosebumps erupt over her skin at just the memory. “How graphic am I allowed to get?”

Just then a group of young people who were clearly intoxicated off their minds tumbled out of a pub in the train station. Waverly paused to let them pass. 

“Girl, come on, who are you talking to?” Chrissy said.

“Fine. I-...well the first time-”

“_First time_.”

“-it was just...passionate and rough and _amazing_, then once we got all that tension out it was...Nicole was so _soft_ and the things she can do with her _mouth_,” Waverly sighed. 

A woman with a child standing near the bench she was sitting ont huffed and tucked her tourist map under her arm before stalking away. Waverly couldn’t even bring herself to care.

“Oh my god, Waverly,” Chrissy said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Waverly ducked her head and looked back up at Nicole. She could see the hint of a bruise peeking out of the collar of her shirt and licked her lips. “I-...I don’t know, Chrissy. I think I might actually really like her.”

Chrissy squealed again and Waverly’s heart was racing a thousand miles a minute just thinking about being with Nicole. After all of this mess and nonsense was behind them. She thought about the fun things, but mostly the boring things like going grocery shopping and holding hands while they walked through the mall.

Waverly watched as Nicole handed the guy some money, eyes following the line of her forearms to the simple black t-shirt sleeves rolled up high on her arms. Her jeans were tight and hugged her just so, and the way she carded her fingers through her hair-

“Waves?”

She jumped a little and cleared her throat, thankful that Chrissy couldn’t see her blush. Nicole started walking towards her and Waverly sighed.

“Nicole is coming back.”

“I can see that, just wanted to make sure you were still breathing,” Chrissy singsonged.

Nicole sat down on the bench next to Waverly and handed her an apple and a bar of chocolate. “These are the only vegan things in that shop.”

“Thank you,” Waverly said, making sure her fingers brushed Nicole’s hand.

“I like to do what I can,” Nicole said, leaning a little into Waverly a moment before pushing a couple of buttons on her watch. “Alright. Eliza tracked Gretta to a village not far from here. Shouldn’t be too hard to get to her.”

“Do...you think she knows?” Waverly trailed off, thinking of Mattie and her bookshop. She slipped her arm around Nicole’s and held it to her chest. 

“Probably,” Nicole said. “But we gotta go. It’s our only choice.”

Waverly rested her cheek on the side of Nicole’s shoulder and she could feel it scrunch up her face, but didn’t care much as long as she could be close to Nicole. 

“Alright then. What sexy mode of transportation are you just going to happen to have waiting outside for us this time?” Waverly joked.

Nicole laughed and squeezed Waverly’s knee. “I’ll show you. Come on.”

***

“Are you serious?”

Nicole’s smirk was just as hot as it was irritating. 

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” Nicole asked, adjusting her sunglasses and walking towards the old black sidecar motorcycle. The sidecar had a rounded front and an uncomfortable looking seat, with a large knobby tire on the side. There were rusty scratches on it like it had scraped multiple cars and poles before ending up here in front of the train station.

“Does it...even drive?”

“Duh,” Nicole said, picking up two helmets from inside the sidecar and handing one to Waverly. “It’s vintage. This baby can really go.” She took off her baseball cap and shoved it into the pocket of her sweatshirt before putting her helmet on her head. Waverly just looked up at Nicole. 

“We’re not actually riding in this, are we?” 

Nicole straddled the bike and flipped up her helmet visor so that Waverly could see her. “Yeah.”

Waverly sighed and started to walk around the bike’s sidecar to get on behind Nicole.

“Waves, you’re sitting in the sidecar,” Nicole smiled. 

Blinking at her once, Waverly looked over at the hunk of metal welded to the side of the motorcycle. Nicole flipped her visor back down and kicked the motorcycle over, the engine coming to life with a sputtering roar. 

“Nicole, I’m not sitting in that thing,” Waverly insisted.

“Sure you are, baby.”

Even with the visor down, Waverly could tell there was a smirk on her face

“You’ll look cute.”

Waverly scoffed at the audacity of it all. 

“Come on, we don’t have time to get anything else,” Nicole said, leaning down and patting the inside of the sidecar, the metal clanging under her hand. 

“Fine,” Waverly mumbled, walking back around the other side of the motorcycle. She slipped the helmet over her head and crawled into the rolling tin can. Her seatbelt clicked into place and Nicole took off from the curb. The motorcycle was way faster than Waverly had been expecting. 

The wind whipped against her as they sped through the streets, the bright red brick of the buildings along the river even brighter in the sun. There were tents set up between buildings and people milling around the streets wearing lederhosen and dirndl, some clearly drunk off their asses despite it just barely being past noon.

“Ah, Oktoberfest,” Nicole said when they stopped at a traffic light. “Perfect time to go unnoticed.”

“You’ve been before? For a mission?” Waverly asked, neck craning up to look at Nicole on the motorcycle. 

“Highly classified, Miss Earp,” Nicole said, eyes firmly forward.

Waverly could hear that smart ass smirk on her face and rolled her eyes. Nicole was lucky that Waverly was still feeling generous after last night, the dull ache between her thighs a delicious reminder of what they had gotten up to.

It was hard not to just watch how Nicole’s hand flexed on the clutch and her arms looked strong as she steered the motorcycle. Waverly cleared her throat and looked away, trying to keep an eye on their surroundings instead. She couldn’t let herself slip up just because she was in some kind of well-fucked haze over Nicole. She rolled her shoulders as they pulled into a less populated area, the crowds thinning out and music sounding far behind them.

The old cobbled streets were narrow and bumpy, so Waverly held on to the edge of the sidecar as they went. Nicole pulled up behind a building and shut off the motorcycle. When she pulled off the helmet, her red hair caught the sun in just the right way that Waverly felt herself swoon a little. So when Nicole tossed her head back to get her hair from her face, Waverly was thankful to be sitting or she would have passed out from how weak her knees were.

Nicole looked down at her just as Waverly was taking her helmet off. It got stuck on her ear and she hissed in pain as the helmet fell into her lap.

“You alright there?” Nicole said, leaning down and kissing the side of Waverly’s head. She bloomed under the attention and smiled up at Nicole. 

“I’m fine now,” she said, forgetting about the mission for a moment.

Nicole winked at her and got off the bike. Waverly pulled herself out of the sidecar and set the helmet inside as she double checked her waistband for her gun. 

“Alright,” Nicole said, pulling out her gun and racking the slide. “We have to be ready. If they knew about Mattie, chances are they might know about Gretta.”

Waverly nodded and she followed Nicole as she pressed her back up against the wall of the red brick building next to the back door. There was an advanced looking keypad and Nicole held her watchup to it until it beeped, the red light on the front turning green. 

“Ready, Earp?” Nicole said, looking over her shoulder at Waverly.

Waverly narrowed her eyes. “Should I be concerned?”

“To barge into a known mercenary’s building unannounced?” Nicole asked with a shrug. “Nah.”

With that, she carefully opened the door and slipped inside. Waverly followed her, gun held down in front of her as their eyes adjusted to the dark room they had entered.

“Why couldn’t we just use the front door?” Waverly whispered. “Maybe she’s a friendly mercenary.”

“Mostly I don’t trust that S.W.A.N. isn’t here already,” Nicole muttered as they slunk through a dark hallway. Waverly couldn’t hear anything. There was a light at the end they were walking towards, but no other doors on either side of them. 

Chrissy beeped in Waverly’s ear. “I don’t see anyone up ahead. But be careful. Don’t want you dying just after you got laid.”

Waverly rolled her eyes and accidently ran into Nicole’s back when she stopped abruptly a few feet away from a closed door at the end of the hall. She put her gun back in the back of her pants after switching on the safety, and stood up. 

“Stay behind me,” Nicole said, shrugging off her jacket and handing it to Waverly. She scoffed and shoved Nicole’s jacket back at her. 

“First of all, ew,” Waverly said, giving Nicole a look. She just smiled and Waverly narrowed her eyes. “Second, we’re just _barging_ in?”

“Yes,” Nicole said with a single nod. She smiled wider, eyes sparkling as she handed her jacket back to Waverly. “And please?”

Waverly managed to keep her hard look for a few more moments before taking Nicole’s jacket with an exasperated sigh. “You owe me.”

Nicole leaned down and kissed Waverly so quickly that she barely had a second to register it before Nicole burst through the door. Waverly watched from the hall as a man launched himself at Nicole and she swiftly punched him in the nose. He crumpled to the ground as another man came from her other side with a gun. Nicole used the flat of her hand to smash his wrist into the wall, moving her body to the side as he shot. His bullet lodged in the inside of the doorframe. He dropped the gun and Nicole kneed him in the balls, causing him to crumple to the ground. Nicole immediately put her hands up and turned to a corner of the room that Waverly couldn’t see from her place in the hallway.

“Agent Haught, FBI, and Agent Earp, CSIS,” Nicole said calmly, just a little winded. “We just wanna talk.”

Waverly held her hands up and carefully stepped into the room. The room was fairly small, faded flower wallpaper peeling from the walls. There was a fireplace in the corner and high security cabinets lining the walls. Waverly could only imagine what was in them. On the opposite side was a desk, papers strewn over it. Sitting in a chair behind the desk was...Mattie? She was leaning back on the back legs of the chair, an automatic rifle propped against her thigh with the barrel trained on Nicole.

“Mattie?” Waverly blurted, eyes wide and sure she was seeing a ghost.

“No. She was my sister,” Gretta said, eyes darting between the two of them. “I’m guessing you’re not here about the memorial.”

Gretta moved the rifle so that it rested on her shoulder, barrel up at the sky. Nicole and Waverly relaxed, hands falling back to their sides. 

“No, but we’re here to talk to you about her,” Nicole said.

Gretta raised an eyebrow at them. “Are you the reason she was killed?”

Waverly licked her lips and stepped in front of Nicole. “Yes.” She heard Nicole groan behind her. “We didn’t mean to but she was helping us.”

“So why shouldn’t I shoot you now?” Gretta asked, casually lowering her gun so the barrel was level with them again. 

“I have something you might be interested in,” Waverly said, holding her wrist up so that the bracelet caught what little light was streaming through the windows. 

Grette eyed it for a moment before her hard gaze shifted to Waverly. “Is that-?”

“Yep.”

“Mattie told me about that. It could go for a fortune on the black market. Get that thing out of here. Is that what my sister died for?”

“No, she died trying to make sure that the world didn’t devolve into another World War over this,” Waverly said, waving her hand in the air.

“We need a key to get it off,” Nicole tried. “Mattie had one but it...got lost. And before that, she mentioned you might know-”

“So let me get this straight,” Gretta said, standing up and kicking out her heels as she walked closer to them. “You get my sister _killed_, lose the thing she got killed for, and then have the balls to come here and ask me for help?”

Gretta was face to face with Waverly, both of their jaws tense. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, blood rushing through her veins and the nerves settling in her stomach as she stared down this woman. The muzzle of the rifle nudged at her stomach and she swallowed thickly. Nicole’s presence behind her certainly helped, but it was still trippy to be staring at the same face of a woman who died just a day ago.

“Yeah, we are,” Nicole said.

Gretta looked up at Nicole before looking back at Waverly. Her hand jumped forward and grabbed Waverly’s wrist, making her jump. Nicole reached forward and grabbed Gretta’s forearm, eyes hard on Gretta as if daring her to make another move towards Waverly. Despite the dangerous automatic weapon aimed at her gut, Waverly felt a rush of affection towards Nicole at the show of protectiveness.

All three stood there in some kind of odd standoff until Gretta chuckled and dropped Waverly’s wrist. Nicole’s hand fell away too, landing instead on Waverly’s hip as she drew her closer to her front.

Gretta’s eyes followed the move and she smirked. “I thought you weren’t supposed to mix work and pleasure?”

Nicole just squeezed Waverly’s hip. “Gretta, please, we need you.”

“You’re lucky I’m impressed by your balls, Haught,” Gretta said as she looked down at Waverly. “Even if you only have them to impress a girl.”

“So you’re going to help us?” Nicole asked.

“You have to do something for me first,” Gretta said. 

“What is it?” Waverly asked.

Gretta lowered her rifle and walked back to the messy desk. She dropped the rifle on the wood with a resounding sound and she sat on the edge of the desk. Nicole’s hand fell from Waverly’s hip and she subtly stepped in front of her.

“I have an...asset that’s currently being guarded by some bad men. Bring it to me and I’ll help you with whatever you need,” Gretta shrugged. “Within reason.”

“Fine,” Nicole said immediately. “What do you need?”

Gretta cracked a subtle and maniacal smile. “You’ll like this one. You get to wear outfits.”

One of the two guards on the ground groaned and Nicole pointed her thumb over her shoulder at him. “Uh, sorry about that. Want me to...put them somewhere-”

Gretta just waved it off. “I’ll handle it. Let’s just say, it’s a good thing you didn’t go in that corner over there.” She pointed to what looked like a trap door in the floor.

Waverly frowned. “Do you...just slide them down there?”

“Yep,” Gretta said, already distracted with some paperwork on her desk. 

“Alright then,” Waverly frowned, passing a look with Nicole before they looked back at Gretta. “You said there were outfits?”

***

“This might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Nicole complained as she pulled at the top of her blouse. 

Waverly’s mouth twitched as she held back a smile, eyes scanning over Nicole’s long exposed legs to where they disappeared into her black dirndl. The bodice displayed an intricately embroidered pattern, and red ribbons that laced up the front, Nicole’s breasts practically spilling out the top. There was a matching red apron and long white stockings to top it off. Waverly wore a matching dirndl, both of their hair done in pig tails.

The air reeked of beer and too many people stuffed into the monastery that had been turned into a pub. They were in a back room trying to get their bearings before they went full force into their current mission. Nicole slapped the magazine into her gun as Waverly tucked her tiny Glock into the garter holster high up on her thigh. Nicole grumbled and waved her arms around as she tried to figure out where to put her gun.

Waverly tilted her head as she suddenly had a thought. “Ever sleep with a partner before?”

Nicole paused, light blush dusting her cheeks as she shook her head. “No.”

“What about a target?”

Nicole wrinkled her nose. “Of course not. That’s highly unprofessional. Not to mention illegal.”

“Sleeping with your partner isn’t?” 

Nicole looked like she decided to just give up and put the gun awkwardly into the waistband of her underwear. “Can we talk about this later, babe?” Nicole said with an exasperated smile. She groaned and ran her hands over the stiff bodice of her dress. “Why did I have to wear a fucking _dress_?”

Waverly tapped Nicole’s lower lip, poked out in an adorable pout and kissed her quickly. “I think you look hot. Plus it was the only thing available. It was this or your underwear.”

“I would have preferred my underwear,” Nicole said, rolling her shoulders and shaking her limbs. “This bodice is stifling. We’ll be lucky if I can fight in this.”

Chrissy beeped in Waverly’s ear. “Alright. We’re getting close to noon. Are you two ready?”

Eliza must have said the same thing in Nicole’s ear because Nicole nodded and stopped fiddling with the edge of her skirt.

“Yep.”

Nicole’s eyes darted over Waverly for a moment and her typical smirk was back. “You look super sexy though.”

Waverly blushed and looked down at how her breasts were pushed up past the top of the white dropped shoulder shirt that was under the dress, thanks to the tight bodice Nicole had been complaining about. 

“Maybe I’ll keep the outfit for later,” Waverly winked, twirling one of her pigtails around her finger. Nicole groaned and reached for her just as Eliza popped up in both of their ears.

“I didn’t think you two would get more annoying after you boned,” she said, clearly snacking on something. “Now come on. Focus. We got your distraction coming up in five minutes. Waverly, you’ll be at the north end of the venue and Nicole at the south. Nicole, follow one of the servers to the back and find out where the VIP area is. Then just get in there, get the asset and get out. Easy peasy.”

“Easy peasy,” Waverly mumbled to herself. 

Nicole dropped a quick kiss on her lips and whispered. “Definitely keep the dress.”

She playfully slapped Waverly’s ass, rolled her shoulders again and put her hand on the door handle. Waverly nodded at her and as Nicole opened the door for her, she walked out to a kitchen area. She was immediately hit in the face with the smell of beer, cooked onions and sausages. Waverly’s stomach growled and she remembered she hadn’t had a proper meal in a few days. It was a huge restaurant style kitchen with a hallway that led to another large kitchen that wasn’t being utilized. There was another door that led out to the bar and sitting area where all the people were gathered. Every time the door opened it was like a roar of noise flooded into the kitchen. 

All the other waitresses were dressed in the same dirndl and the waiters were in matching lederhosen. Waverly giggled when Nicole groaned as a waiter walked by in the pants and a matching hat.

“_They_ get to wear pants.”

She looked down at her watch and hit a couple of buttons so that Waverly could hear her in her ear and Eliza and Chrissy were in both of their ears. With one last reassuring glance at each other, Waverly and Nicole walked through the door into the main dining hall. Stepping behind the bar, Nicole picked up two freshly filled steins, her biceps bulging from her arms. Waverly watched the strong muscles of her forearms flex and felt her mouth water a little bit. Nicole might not like the dress, but Waverly had to admit that seeing how her long legs looked in heels and a short skirt was...enticing. 

“Meet up with you later,” Nicole mumbled so that only they could hear. She took off to the opposite end of the dining hall and Waverly watched her for a moment before picking up a stein. She nearly dropped it from the surprising weight of it, arm sagging for a moment before she gained her bearings again and picked up a second one. 

At the end of the hall, there was a band setting up on a stage. Waverly walked along one of the long tables until she saw two young men waving at her for beer. She smiled at them and set the steins on the table. Looking up, she caught Nicole’s eye and smiled as the band began to play.

***

Nicole’s forearm was still embarrassingly sore from the night before. Not that she was complaining, but it was making it harder to hold the heavy stein than it would have been normally. But she couldn’t let Waverly see her struggle, so she picked it up like nothing and carried it to the south end of the venue.

Her eyes scanned the crowd as she went. No one seemed too nefarious, unless you counted drunk tourists and irresponsible young people as such. But Nicole never wanted to be too sure. That’s when you got in trouble. 

A man in a crisp black suit standing along the side of the wall caught her eye. He seemed sharp eyed and intent, and Nicole knew instantly that he was one of the guys they were supposed to look out for. 

Gretta asked for them to get a harddrive from the Nacht Soldaten, a German crime organization that had roots in Nazi Germany, and these days mostly dealt in drugs and money laundering. Nicole wasn’t entirely sure why Gretta wanted whatever was on that drive, but it wouldn’t be the first shady thing she had done on the job in pursuit of the greater good. Whatever that meant anymore.

Above all else, she had to protect Waverly. 

This whole pub was a front for the Nacht Soldaten, a money laundering opportunity and a place to hide in plain sight. Waverly and Nicole needed to infiltrate and get into the back rooms. Luckily, a time like Oktoberfest was the best time to do it. Crowds, loud music, lots of distractions...it was perfect. A lot of the waiters were Nacht Soldaten too, she could tell by their shifty eyes and not quite as enthusiastic smiles.

She looked over at the band setting up at a nearby stage and rested her elbows along her waistline in a way that let her feel her gun there, cold and reassuring. Setting the steins down in front of two thirsty looking customers, she watched the band get ready to play. That would be their cue. 

Her eyes landed on a waiter who looked to be the right size, noticing when he nodded at one of the suited guards as he carried a tray of snacks to a back table. She looked up and made eye contact with Waverly across the hall and winked just as the band started to play. The polka music was loud and coupled with the people cheering for it, the noise in the hall was almost unbearable. 

Nicole walked past the suspicious waiter, staying close so that she could follow him. She gave him a brief smile as she slipped past him in the narrow walkway and picked up a couple of empty steins from the table. When she bent over to pick up a third a little further away, she felt a hard pinch to her ass and stood up quickly. 

She spun quickly to face her assailant, grip tightening on the steins in her hands. She forced a ditzy smile as the waiter she was sure was part of Nacht Soldaten wiggled his eyebrows at her. He lewdly scanned his eyes over Nicole’s body and she felt her blood boil but kept the smile in place.

_”In den Rücken gehen?”_ Nicole simpered, trying to keep the angry shake from her voice.

_”Ja, warum nicht?”_ the waiter said. 

Nicole took a deep breath and turned around to walk towards the kitchens. She hated that she could feel his eyes on her ass as she walked, but put an extra sway to her hips anyways. 

This was always her least favorite part of the job, but she was also really good at it. 

“Do you need help, Nicole?” Waverly asked in her ear.

“Nope,” she said softly, pushing the door to the kitchen open. They weaved through the kitchen and headed towards the empty one, steins still in hand. She set them down on a nearby metal table and turned back to the waiter. As soon as the heavy metal door separating the kitchens closed, Nicole pressed her body against his, his back slamming against the door. 

She pressed her hands against his chest and smiled, sickly sweet, while keeping him in place. 

He chuckled and looked down the front of her shirt. _”Du verschwendest keine Zeit.”_

_”Wenn ich ’was sehe, das mir gefällt, möchte ich nicht warten,”_ she husked, face close to his.

Nicole slowly ran her hand down his body, thankfully not finding a hint of any weapons. The waiter put his hands on her hips, slipping them down to her ass and Nicole bristled. In one swift movement, she grabbed one of the heavy steins and hit it against the side of his head so hard that it shattered. A dazed look came over his face before he slumped onto the floor. Nicole shivered, shaking her limbs to get the gross feelings off of her as she stepped back from his slumped body.

She glanced down at her watch and nodded. She had a second. 

Quickly, Nicole took her drindel off and stripped the lederhosen off of the unconscious man. As she tied up his boots to replace her ridiculous heels, Nicole smiled and ran her hands over the soft leather of the outfit. She felt a keycard in the pocket and pulled it out.

As quickly as she could, she dragged his unconscious body to a corner and propped a large carton of pretzels in front of him to block him in case someone came snooping. 

“Are you okay?” Waverly said into the earpiece. 

Nicole tossed the dirndl over the waiter and smiled as she looked down at her outfit. She took her pigtails down and ruffled her hair so it settled into her natural waves instead. “Perfect. I think I got the key into the VIP room, now we just gotta find it.”

“I have eyes on someone,” Waverly said. Nicole’s ears perked up and she quickly slipped back into the main kitchen. “I’m gonna follow them.”

“No, Waves,” Nicole whispered as she picked up more steins to take into the main room. “I have the key card. Just hang back and observe.”

“I can help, Nicole,” Waverly said flatly. 

Nicole’s stomach clenched and she tensed her jaw. The driving need to protect Waverly made her fingers twitch and she tried to push it away. But she also thought of the tech on her wrist and how this whole thing was so much bigger than the two of them. 

“I know you can, but you need to be careful. We can’t have S.W.A.N. get ahold of you.”

Slipping out into the main area, Nicole’s eyes quickly found Waverly who was trailing behind a beefy looking man flanked by two security guards. 

“Waverly, I see them. Please, just let me do this,” Nicole whispered, setting down the steins without bothering to look where she put them. 

Waverly glanced over at Nicole who was striding towards her, and gave her a look. “I thought we were partners.”

“We _are_-“

“Then let’s do it together,” Waverly said. 

Nicole stopped dead in her tracks, staring at Waverly as her resolve crumbled. “Fine,” she growled, turning on her heels and just shadowing Waverly from the other side of the hall. “Follow him and we’ll see where the room we need is.” 

Waverly’s smile made her heart lurch and Nicole resolved to be extra vigilant. The polka music was loud and distracting, practically rattling in her skull as she watched Waverly disappear into the kitchen behind the man who was likely a higher up in the Nacht Soldaten. 

“There’s a hall back here,” Waverly said. “With a staircase. Only some waiters are going up every once in a while.”

“Great,” Nicole said, making her way back towards the kitchens. “Get a plate of strudel ready, baby. We’re going in.”

Nicole picked up four steins and headed back to the kitchens, keeping her head down in a way that made her unremarkable. She watched as Waverly smiled up at one of the waiters and batted her eyelashes at him as she reached for his tray of strudel ready to be delivered. He looked down at her moony eyed, willingly letting her take his tray. Waverly turned towards Nicole with a smile and wink. Nicole raised an eyebrow at her and let Waverly lead her deeper to the back part of the kitchen towards a barely visible door. 

Waverly turned towards Nicole as soon as they were in an empty quiet part of the hallway. 

“If you can flirt, I can too,” she said with a hint of ire lacing her words. 

Nicole raised an amused eyebrow. “Jealous?”

“As if,” Waverly said. Her eyes scanned over Nicole’s new outfit. “I can’t believe you took the time to change into a different outfit.”

“I’m more useful in this one,” Nicole said. She abandoned two of the steins in the hall so that her hands were free to work. Then she pulled the keycard out of the pocket of her pants and closed the distance towards the door. With one last look over her shoulder at Waverly to make sure she was still with her, Nicole scanned the card, plastered on a smile and walked inside.

Her eyes scanned the room that was just big enough for a long banquet style table. There were men sitting around the long heavy wooden table, about eight of them, all laughing, drinking and eating from big platters of food on the table. 

_“Schönen Tag!”_ Waverly said cheerily, bright smile on her face as she went over to the table and went to set down the platter. Most of the men ignored her, but as she bent over, the swell of her breasts spilled out of her top and all the men around her suddenly had their eyes on her. Nicole took the opportunity to walk the long way around the table, giving Eliza a good scan of the room.

“Oh, I got eyes on the package,” Eliza said as Nicole set one of the steins down on the table. “Two o’clock. With the big guy.”

Nicole’s eyes flickered over and she spotted it, a metal briefcase sitting besides a big man who had his arms crossed, just observing the table instead of participating. She cursed to herself. Always with the big guys. Nicole looked up just as one of the skeevy guys pulled Waverly into his lap. She let out a squeak of surprise, cheeks turning red, but she just giggled. Nicole’s hand tightened on the stein and she walked towards the man with the package.

Eight shouldn’t be...too hard. She’d certainly dealt with more at once. And at least she had Waverly to help. The bracelet on her wrist was certainly a useful secret weapon. 

Nicole quickly laid out a plan in her mind as she strode easily up behind the man with the package. He had buzzed blond hair and a strong jaw that reminded Nicole of a guy she knew in high school who would always try to beat her up. He succeeded the first time, catching Nicole off guard when she was flirting against a locker with one of the cheerleaders. She was lanky and skinny and he took her by surprise, successfully giving her a black eye. But Nicole was prepared after that and he never got the best of her again. So it was satisfying when she grabbed a fistful of the hair at the back of his head and slammed his face into the table.

He let out a grunt of surprise and pain, blood pouring from his nose and over his mouth as a room full of shocked eyes land on her. Nicole pulled his head back, quickly reaching over him to snatch the gun she’d spotted in his belt. She held it against his temple as a room full of guns trained themselves on her.

Waverly was pushed from the other man’s lap as he stood up, and they all started yelling at her in German. Nicole made eye contact with Waverly, nodding with a smirk. Waverly shoved the bracelet against the neck of the man who’d pulled her onto his lap. His body jerked with a powerful shock before dropping limply to the ground. With a quick backhand, Waverly shoved the bracelet right into the face of a man who’d runup behind her to grab her. Nicole dropped the man’s head she was holding and quickly threw a stein at the head of the man running up behind Waverly. 

The heavy glass hit him in the temple and he went down with a grunt. 

The man she had shoved into the table took advantage of her distraction and jolted upright, the back of his head slamming into Nicole’s face. Pain bloomed across her face and she could feel the hot blood pouring from her nose. Without thinking, Nicole picked up the chair he had just stood up out of and swung it to hit him in the back of his head. He grunted and fell down as another man came up behind Nicole and wrapped his arm around her neck. 

Nicole pushed back on the balls of her feet, throwing him off balance. She reached over her shoulders and wrapped her hands around his neck, then quickly snapped her torso towards the floor to flip her assailant over her head. He crashed onto the floor on his back. She looked up just in time to watch Waverly kick a man in the neck, the thin heel of her high heels getting him right in the throat. He choked, clutching his throat and pointing his gun at her. Nicole couldn’t help but admire the athletic way Waverly bent backwards nearly to the floor so that when the gun fired, he took down another man that was approaching her just then. Waverly pulled her small gun and shot him in the chest, sending him to the ground with the other three thugs she had already dispatched. 

Unfortunately Nicole didn’t have long to marvel in how sexy the whole thing was because time slowed as she watched a gun being raised towards her from her peripherals. 

Without even thinking, Nicole reached for a circular metal serving platter loaded with schnitzel, and threw it full force like a frisbee. The hard metal edge of the platter lodged itself in the man’s throat, blood spurting out of the wound on his neck as his gun aimed towards the ceiling in surprise, firing harmlessly. The man’s eyes went lifeless as he crumpled to the ground and Nicole winced. In her small moment of hesitation, the thug with the briefcase jumped up, grabbed the asset and ran out the door. 

“Fuck!” Nicole said, pulling out her gun and shooting towards him as he ran down the hall. He turned the corner just in time and dust from the stone wall exploded as the bullet hit it. “Fuck fuck _fuck_.”

Nicole used her hand to push herself up and over the banquet table and ran after him. She could hear Waverly running behind her but she wasn’t as fast in her heels as Nicole was in her newly acquired boots. 

_”Bewegung! Entschuldigung!”_ she shouted as they got back to the kitchens, pushing past the waiters and waitresses in there as they bustled around to serve the customers in the main hall. Nicole watched the thug with the briefcase run into the empty kitchen and chased after him. As soon as she pushed open the door she was punched across her jaw. Her body was thrown into a nearby metal counter, and she suddenly felt the constricting feeling of something tight across her throat. 

Nicole clawed at whatever was around her neck as the edges of her vision started to go dark, the man’s body completely pressed to hers and keeping her against the table. Her fingers clawed at the table, coming into contact with what she recognized to be the edge of a beer stein. She grasped at the tip of one of the handles, using the last of her strength to pull it towards her, moving it back quickly to hit the thug in the head. His grip on whatever he hand pulled across her throat loosened and she quickly rolled to bring the stein across his head again. 

He stumbled back just as Waverly burst through the door. 

“Get the briefcase!” Nicole shouted as the man growled and ran towards Nicole like he was going to tackle her. She grabbed another stein, one in each hand, and smashed his head between them so hard that the glass shattered. Still he only hesitated for a moment before charging at her again. With a desperate thrust, Nicole smashed the sharp fractured glass into his crotch and his eyes bugged out of his head before he fell to the ground with a groan.

“Fucking finally!” Nicole panted, slumping back against the counter to catch her breath. She looked up and saw Waverly holding the briefcase up triumphantly. Nicole smiled and reached for one of the full steins. “Great.”

She toasted Waverly and tipped back the stein, letting the slightly warm beer smooth over her tongue and soothe her sore throat. She felt the beer splashing down the front of her shirt and as her lungs burned, she lowered the stein. Smacking her lips together, she noticed Waverly looking at her with a confused expression.

“What?” Nicole asked.

Waverly shook herself out of her daze. “I just never thought I’d find someone chugging a beer with blood running down their face like some kinda jock would be so sexy.”

Nicole smirked and Waverly just gave her another look.

“Come on, let’s get out of here before more of those guys come.”

***

Waverly tossed her heels into a corner as they stepped into Gretta’s small apartment. 

It was above the room they had been in before and was just big enough to give some semblance of privacy. There was a living room area that was mostly overrun with computers and other forms of technology that rivaled even the CSIS headquarters. 

Gretta was sitting at a desk littered with papers, a simple looking laptop on top of it. Nicole dropped the briefcase on the desk with a broad smile. 

“Here you are,” she said, chest puffing a little. “Now can we get that key?”

Gretta looked at the briefcase and back up at Nicole. “I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think you’d make it out of there.” She squinted at Nicole’s blood stained face. “Looks like you almost didn’t.”

“That was nothing,” Nicole shrugged, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Now we helped you, you help us. That was the deal.”

Waverly watched her muscular legs flex in the short shorts of her lederhosen, and tugged on the edge of her skirt subconsciously. They had sped here after escaping from the Oktoberfest pub and Waverly hadn’t had a moment to let the adrenaline calm down. But now that it was settling in her veins, she kept thinking about how sexy Nicole looked in her outfit, and when she was beating those guys up. Not to mention right now when she was being all authoritative and firm with Gretta. 

If the circumstances were different, Waverly might go up and drape herself across Nicole’s back and grind into her-

“Waves.”

Waverly blinked and refocused her eyes. Nicole and Gretta were looking at her and she blushed, trying to brush it off with a smile. “Yes? Sorry. I’m just...tired.”

Chrissy snorted knowingly in her ear and Waverly wished she could kick her. 

“Gretta is going to get us the key,” Nicole said with a relieved smile. “She’s having one of her guys bring it. Then we’ll get back home and get that fucking thing off of you.”

Waverly smiled widely, relief and happiness inching through her bones. “Oh good.”

Gretta wrinkled her nose and leaned a little more towards Nicole. “You smell like beer and blood. Go change.”

Nicole slid off of the desk with a roll of her eyes. “Fine.”

“I’ll go with you,” Waverly said. They had left the backpack with their clothes in the apartment earlier. Picking it up, Nicole led Waverly into the bathroom connected to the bedroom. Nicole closed the door behind them and Waverly instantly pressed up against her. The backpack made a soft thud as it dropped to the ground and Waverly slid her leg between Nicole’s, pressing her thigh up against her crotch.

“Fuck,” Nicole whispered, hands on Waverly’s hips as she brought their lips together. 

“You were so hot back there,” Waverly growled, tugging on the straps of Nicole’s lederhosen. She could feel her damp underwear pressing directly into Nicole’s thigh but was too turned on to care. “The dress was hot but this is-”

Waverly didn’t finish her sentence. Instead she ripped open Nicole’s shirt, buttons popping and scattering across the tiny bathroom as she scraped her teeth over Nicole’s collarbone, sucking to purposefully leave a bruise. She soothed her tongue over the skin, tasting the sweat and something sharp and tangy like gunpowder.

Nicole groaned and pulled Waverly’s hips tight against her so that she could grind unashamed against her muscled thigh.

“Wait, baby,” Nicole husked.

There was a moan stuck at the back of Waverly’s throat but she swallowed it and looked up at Nicole through her lashes. “Yeah?”

“We can’t...here. It’s not safe,” Nicole said, head tipping back against the wood of the door. “I wish we could.”

Waverly groaned, nipping at the hollow of Nicole’s throat before pulling away reluctantly. “Fine.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Nicole said, dropping her hands from Waverly’s hips and pressing them tight against the wall. “Why don’t-” she swallowed thickly. “I’m going to take a quick shower to get the blood off of me.” 

“Okay,” Waverly said, pulling the braids from her hair and running her fingers through the strands. They got caught on a few knots but she quickly changed back into her regular clothes as Nicole stripped to take a shower. Waverly let her eyes linger on Nicole’s ass as she got into the shower before the curtain blocked her view. 

“I understand the appeal but jeez, Waves,” Chrissy said in her ear. “You have a scary mercenary right outside. Focus.”

Waverly was embarrassed that she let herself forget about Chrissy for a moment and she felt her cheeks heat. With a sigh, Waverly slipped back out of the bathroom and tucked her gun in the waistband of her jeans. 

“I know. Sorry.”

Gretta was hunched over her laptop, eyes intent on something as she muttered to herself. When Waverly walked into the room, she looked at her briefly before looking back at her screen.

“You two are a bit of Romeo and Juliet scenario, aren’t you?” Gretta said.

Waverly frowned. “Uh...not really. Why? Because she’s FBI and I’m CSIS?”

Gretta leaned back in her chair and looked up at Waverly for a moment before she chuckled. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?” 

Gretta licked her lips like she was relishing the moment. She pulled some sort of small device from her pocket and hit a button. Waverly frowned and Gretta arms crossed over her chest. “What do you know about S.W.A.N.?”

Waverly shook her head. “Just the basics. An international group of mercenaries who are working with governments in an attempt to bring war and chaos. Your typical super villain organization.”

“So you know of Bobo Del Rey?” Gretta asked.

“Yeah,” Waverly shrugged. “He’s one of their top guys. But no one has been able to nail down any of his other high ranking associates.”

Gretta smiled so widely it frightened Waverly. “Well, while you two were gone, I decided to get into the FBI’s files, make sure I wasn’t working with anyone I couldn’t handle.” 

Waverly frowned and she tilted her head, waiting for Chrissy to chime in about the fact that Gretta just hacked into government files. But there was nothing. 

“I’m disrupting your signal,” Gretta said, matter of factly, pointing to the device on the table. She motioned for Waverly to come behind the desk and look at her computer. Waverly hesitated a moment. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I know they’d have me taken down in less than a day. I just want to show you something.”

Waverly’s curious mind got the best of her and rounded the desk. On the screen was an old mugshot of Bobo, long haired and icy eyed as he stared at the camera. 

“From my own connections, I know that Bobo is working with a Constance Clootie,” Gretta said bringing up another picture of Clootie. It was the blonde woman who had been running the auction and Waverly’s blood ran cold.

“Balls.”

“Yeah,” Gretta said. “From what you told me about your situation in Italy, it was all a set up. S.W.A.N. basically set up a honey pot to get you and the tech on your wrist.”

Waverly unconsciously touched the bracelet, cold under her fingers.

“Now, I was trying to figure out how this tech had even surfaced after being hidden for so long. According to the Mayan legend, the only person who can activate it has to be a _Pixamech_.”

Waverly searched her brain for a translation but shook her head. “What does that mean?”

“An angel,” Gretta said with a wiggle of her eyebrows. “No one knows what that really means, but maybe someone did and that’s how it found you. Now does...this person look familiar to you?” Gretta typed something quickly and the surveillance picture that popped up on her screen made Waverly feel sick.

It felt like her stomach had dropped to the floor, bile rising in her throat as she looked into eyes she hadn’t seen in years. Ten, to be exact. Eyes she thought were lost forever.

“Willa?” Waverly managed despite all the air being stolen from her lungs.

Gretta clicked on another image and it showed Willa and Bobo striding through an airport in Italy together. Waverly’s mouth was dry and she shook her head. 

“That’s...impossible,” Waverly said. “She’s-...Willa died. Ten years ago.”

“Apparently not,” Gretta said almost gleefully. A few more clicks and another window popped up. “Look at this gem here.”

Waverly leaned forward to read the box that popped up on the screen. It read:

_Agent assigned to target: N. Haught  
Status: Green light_

“Green light?” 

“Means, kill on sight,” Gretta supplied.

Waverly straightened up quickly, bile flooding her mouth. Gretta hit the button on her signal disruptor and she heard Chrissy in her ear.

“Waves, Waves! Are you back? Are you okay? What happened?”

Waverly ignored her. She couldn’t believe it. Nicole wouldn’t...lie to her. Would she? As if on cue, Nicole walked out of the bedroom, her red hair darker from the water. She was wearing a cut-off t-shirt that showed off her toned arms and tight jeans. Waverly could hardly look at her without the sickness getting worse in her belly. 

Nicole smiled at her but then noticing the look on Waverly’s face, it quickly turned to a frown. “Waves-?”

“How could you?” Waverly said through gritted teeth, hot tears flooded her eyes. 

Nicole’s brow furrowed and she shook her head as she got closer, reaching for Waverly. “What are you talking about?”

Waverly pulled away from Nicole’s touch, stumbling backwards. “I trusted you.”

“Please, baby, what are you-?”

“_Don’t_ call me that,” Waverly seethed. “Don’t call me anything, actually. I never want to talk to you again.”

She turned on her heels to walk out of the apartment when Nicole grabbed her arm to keep her there. But Waverly pulled away again and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her. She quickly wiped her arm across her eyes as tears clouded her vision and she ran into the street. Nicole lied to her. Nicole knew-...

As she got to the street, she felt Nicole grab her arm again and she spun to face her.

“Waverly, please-!”

“Don’t you even _dare_,” Waverly said, poking Nicole hard in the chest. “You knew. You _always_ knew.”

“Knew what?” Nicole finally yelled, clearly frustrated. 

“You knew about Willa!” 

Nicole’s face fell, confirming what Waverly already knew, and her heart broke more than she thought possible. 

“You fucking knew. The whole time,” Waverly choked. “I trusted you, Nicole.”

“Waverly, please, I couldn’t tell you! It was classified!”

“That’s a weak fucking excuse and you know it,” Waverly hissed, tears blurring her vision so she swiped at them wth the heels of her hands. “You should have told me-“

“I couldn’t-“

“I’m your partner!”

“Oh please!” Nicole said, running a frustrated hand through her hair. “You’re not my partner, Waverly. Not anymore!”

Waverly froze, jaw agape as she looked at Nicole. “What?”

“Maybe you started out as my partner, but as soon as it was clear this wasn’t an easy mission you became an asset!” Nicole said, eyes wide. “I have to protect you! And I have never lost an asset before so let’s just get this thing off you and forget this ever happened.”

As if the pieces of Waverly’s heart weren’t shattered enough, Nicole’s words practically ground it down into dust. 

“Yeah, well fuck you, Nicole!” Waverly spat. ”Count this as your first lost asset.”

With that, Waverly turned on her heels and ran down a dark alley and away from Nicole. If Nicole wanted to be that way, fine. Waverly didn’t need her anyways. She never did. She would have been just fine without her. And she would prove it. 

Chrissy’s voice nagged in her ear. “Waverly, wait—” 

“Not now, Chrissy,” Waverly growled. But as she turned the corner, the lack of footsteps behind her felt odd. She was sure she was going to have to fight to keep Nicole away from her. But she looked over her shoulder and she was nowhere to be seen. 

Just then, Chrissy spoke in her ear, voice tight. “Waverly,” she said. “Nicole. She’s gone black. Someone took her.”

And Waverly bent over, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the cobblestone streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're back filming and <3
> 
> Thank you to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for still being the best beta after having to put up with my lack of gun knowledge and movie physics.

Heavy boots landed in the dirt. 

They looked around and stretched their arms, tattooed skin rippling over their muscles. 

There was a sound of rustling from the trees and the ancient warrior stood stiffly, ready to react. 

Three soldiers wearing camouflage and berets came out of the woods. They saluted her, and one stepped forward.

“Name?”

“Valdez.”

The soldier nodded. “Welcome. We’re here to help with whatever you need.”

Valdez turned towards the sun and felt the energy flow through her. The angel was close and in peril. She turned back to the soldiers.

“We do not have much time. Take me to your weapons.”

***

Waverly tried to breathe deeply through her nose, hand on her stomach and other hand pressed to the cold brick of the building next to her. She could still taste the bile in her mouth, throat burning as she spit onto the ground. Slowly, she pushed herself off the wall and looked around.

No sign Nicole was even just there.

“Shit balls.”

Waverly ran back up to Gretta’s apartment and burst through the door, eyes blazing.

“Where is she?” Waverly asked, voice shaking. “Where did they take her?”

Gretta blinked at her for a moment before she shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Nicole! Someone took-...she’s gone.” 

Waverly felt the hot press of tears behind her eyes, throat sore and tight as she tried to hold them back. Eliza hadn’t seen anything, just suddenly Nicole went black. The last thing Eliza said she saw was Waverly turning the corner and running away before she lost track of Nicole. 

“I assure you, Earp, I had nothing to do with that.”

“Then you know who did,” Waverly insisted, pressing the palms of her hands hard against the top of Gretta’s table. 

Gretta stared back at Waverly. “Listen, little girl, it’s not so smart that you’re coming in here and accusing me of these things.”

Fed up, Waverly pulled her gun from the waistband of her pants and held it up, finger on the trigger as she looked down the sights at Gretta.

“Waves,” Chrissy said lowly. “Stop it.”

Waverly’s finger just tensed on the trigger. “Tell me where she went.”

Gretta smiled stiffly. “I just jammed your communications with whoever that is in your ear and now you’re pointing a gun at me? Haught was right, you’re not much of a partner.”

“You know _nothing_.”

“Maybe Haught just left on her own. Didn’t want to deal with a bratty little girl anymore.”

“Stop!” Waverly said. All of her feelings of inadequacy, of just not being enough, came to the forefront of her mind. She had spent years behind a desk, reasoning why she wasn’t good enough for field work. Maybe she still wasn’t. Her mind was still cloudy with the realization that Willa was still alive and apparently part of an organization that was trying to kill her. She took another step towards Gretta, hand visibly shaking as she held up the gun. “You know how to find Nicole. Tell me how.”

Gretta, still looking calm as ever, smiled widely and leaned back into her chair. “I do want to see how this is going to turn out.” She tipped her head to the side and shrugged. “How do you feel about a family reunion?”

***

The first thing Nicole noticed was the taste of copper. She groaned, tongue thick in her mouth as pain radiated across her face. Her brain was muddled, trying to catch up with the world around her. She could smell...damp and rot and _blood_. Maybe it was her own. She hoped it was her own. 

She swallowed thickly, her throat so dry that she coughed. 

Something tight bit into her wrists and she realized her hands were tied behind a - she shifted a little - a chair. Her ankles were bound and there was a ringing in her skull that made her feel sick.

“Fuck,” she breathed with what little air she could get into her lungs. Her ribs hurt, possibly broken, and it felt like her lip was swollen. Blinking, she tried to gain some concept of time and place. It was dark, so it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she just saw her own lap, jeans dirty and bloody. Slowly, she lifted her head, grimacing at the pain at the base of her skull. She could barely make out what appeared to be some chains along the perimeter of the space. At first, she thought she was in a catacomb, skulls and bones lining the walls and the distant sound of dripping water being the only thing she could hear besides her own labored breathing. But as her sight adjusted, she noticed she was in some sort of clear room built inside of the catacombs.

The only light source in the room was above her, and when she craned her neck up to look, despite the pain, she saw a single light bulb hanging over her. How stereotypical.

“Great,” Nicole mumbled, letting her head hang again.

Every part of her being was telling her to start figuring out a way out of here, but her brain felt like cotton and her entire body ached. She smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Her throat and nose throbbed and she felt nauseous. She had definitely been drugged.

“Eliza?” she tried, but nothing. She was sure whoever captured her had taken out her ear and eye piece.

Breathing deeply through her nose and trying to ward off the sickness, Nicole took another look around. There was nothing of note in the room but a thick metal door that probably led to another hall. She could only assume she was still in Germany, but she couldn’t think of a single catacomb with exposed bones in the country. 

With another groan, she spit onto the ground, blood landing on the stone floor. 

There was a metallic ‘click’ that echoed through the room and she looked up at the door, every muscle tightening painfully. The door swung open and a woman walked in with a self satisfied smirk on her face. Nicole’s stomach dropped, but she maintained her composure as Willa Earp walked in, followed closely by a tall man with a mohawk. He was shirtless save for an obnoxious fur coat, and Willa could be confused for some sort of hippie, if someone didn’t know any better.

Nicole searched her memory banks and remembered the man’s name: Bobo. Someone high up in S.W.A.N. and Willa’s general partner. Maybe romantically too.

“Well lookie here,” Willa said, smile never fading. “Agent Haught. I thought I’d run into you eventually. Never thought it would be on this side.”

Nicole straightened out her shoulders as best she could, wrists straining against the binds. They felt cold, like metal. She twisted her wrists a little to see if there was any give, any way she could slide out of them.

“What do you want?” Nicole said, not interested in playing whatever game Willa was trying to play.

“I think you know exactly what I want,” Willa said, arms crossing in front of her chest. “I meant to grab my bratty sister, but it ended up working out anyways.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nicole said. She figured playing stupid was for the best at the moment. 

Her stomach ached thinking about Waverly. About the last things that they said to each other. Nicole really hoped that wouldn’t be the last time she saw Waverly. She had so much to say to her. To apologize for. Not to mention she wanted to kiss her again. Even if it was one last time.

It was her own fault that she was in this mess. She’d hidden information from Waverly. It was to stop her from getting hurt, but Waverly should have known. Nicole should have told her about Willa. She just couldn’t bring herself to break Waverly’s heart. But that ship had sailed now.

“I know you’re not as stupid as you look, Agent Haught,” Willa said. “And we’ll get that key from you. Then we’re going to kill you.”

“Might as well kill me now, because I’m not going to give you anything,” Nicole hissed.

Willa’s smile grew, wide and sinister like the Cheshire Cat. “Oh, I think you will,” she said. “Because we have the one thing you want. We have Waverly.”

***

Wynonna happily munched on the powdered donut she had shoved into her mouth. Still holding it in her mouth, she opened the box in her arms to choose her second donut. If she timed this right, she could eat at least two more before she got back to the office. 

Dolls really was an idiot for letting her continue to be the one to go on snack runs. She’d always come back with half eaten donuts and a lukewarm carton of coffee. It had crossed her mind that Dolls was just trying to get rid of her for a couple of hours, but she didn’t care because she was more than happy to get out of the office.

She slid back into her truck and sighed, grabbing a donut for the road and spearing it on her pointer finger so she could drive.

Being grounded was one of the hardest things she had experienced. And one time she’d had to collect semen from a horse (desperate times blah blah). Apparently Dolls didn’t take too kindly to her setting up a dart board in his office, and hanging out with the handler nerds was boring. Not to mention frustrating. To watch her baby sister get to do all the fun stuff was like torture. She should be there with her. Then she would have been able to tell Haught to keep her ginger paws to herself. 

Speaking of, she’d definitely lost that bet. Waverly couldn’t keep it in her pants until after the mission? Not that Wynonna blamed her. 

When she finally got back into Dolls’ office, he had his fists pressed to the top of his desk, head hanging between his shoulders.

Wynonna frowned. “What is it, boss? I got the jelly filled you asked for.”

Stepping into the office, she saw Chrissy and Shapiro sitting in some chairs against the wall.

“What?” Wynonna asked, dropping the box of donuts down on Dolls’ desk. “Where’s Waverly?”

Dolls let out a long sigh and stood up, a comforting hand out towards Wynonna as if he was expecting her to lunge at him.

“Now, Wynonna, I need you to stay calm.”

“Calm my sweet ass,” Wynonna practically growled. “Tell me where my fucking sister is. Tell me she’s fine.”

Unflinching dark eyes practically stared Wynonna down as nervous energy ran through her veins. She could feel her palms sweating, ready to go off and kick whoever’s ass she needed to kick to get Waverly out of...whatever she was in. Dolls licked his lips, voice calm.

“Waverly has gone dark,” Dolls said. Wynonna clenched her fists and he continued. “Nicole was taken, she went dark too. She was taken by S.W.A.N.”

“Alright, when do I ship out?”

“Earp.”

“Come on. I need to go get my sister.”

“We don’t know where she is.”

“Well I’ll fucking find her.”

“You can’t just go storming into a foreign country and start fucking shit up, Earp. The chances of an international incident-”

“I’m willing to risk it for my _sister_-”

“Well I’m not,” Dolls’ voice was deep, booming, and Wynonna felt it deep in her bones. She frowned at Dolls, fists so tight her nails were cutting into her palm.

“That’s my sister you’re talking about. She’s not some pawn for you to play with! I’m going to get her,” Wynonna turned to go back out the door but it was closed, handle immovable. She turned back around and glared at Dolls. “Did you fucking lock me in here?”

“It’s for the best, Earp,” Dolls tried. “We’re talking to the German agency and they’re going to help.”

“Since when do we trust the Germans with this shit.” Wynonna started pacing like an animal in a cage. “Fine! I’ll go in with the Germans!”

Dolls and Chrissy looked at each other. Wynonna caught the look and pointed between the two. 

“What the fuck was that?”

“There’s something else you need to know,” Dolls said. Wynonna just stared at him, waiting for his to finally spill it. “Willa. She’s alive.”

A strange mix of happiness and confusion flooded Wynonna’s stomach. “I-...how? Where? What does that have to do with Waverly?”

“Willa has been working with S.W.A.N.,” Dolls said. “We’ve been tracking her for a few years but it was more of a hunch than anything. Otherwise we wouldn’t have sent Waverly out into the field.”

“You’ve known?”

“We had an idea, but it was nothing definitive. Not enough to tell anyone about.”

Wynonna growled and slammed her hands down on Dolls’ desk. “You’ve been lying to me! To both of us.”

“We’re fixing it,” Dolls said, calmer than Wynonna liked. “I need you to stay in here and I promise we’ll fix it. We’ll get Waverly back safely. But I need you to trust me.”

“Trust? Ha,” Wynonna spat. “I think you’ve proven you can’t trust me. Why should I trust you?”

“Because you know I’m right.”

Deep down, beyond her reckless nature, Wynonna did know that Dolls was right. There was only so much going in somewhere, guns blazing, could do. She’d done it once and got them into this whole mess to begin with.

“You have twenty-four hours to bring my sister back. Then I take things into my own hands.”

***

Nicole grunted as a fist collided with her chin. She was in so much pain that she was sure she’d gone numb.

Bobo pulled her head up by her hair from where it hung against her chest. He grunted, low and animal.

“Where is the key?”

Nicole couldn’t help but think about the place she had shoved it behind Gretta’s toilet before her shower. Just a small, simple stone, easily missed. Not even Waverly knew where she had hidden it.

“Where’s Waverly?”

He slapped her across the face and she tensed her jaw, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her grimace. Cold eyes turned back to her.

“Where is the key?”

“Is that all you can say? Did Willa take away your free will _and_ your speech?” Nicole quipped. 

“Tell me where the key is you annoying FBI bitch,” Bobo said. “Or your little girlfriend will just be a bloody smear at the bottom of the Cologne Cathedral.”

So they were still in Germany. Good to know.

“You harm one hair on her head-”

“Or what?”

Nicole spit in his face, saliva mixed with blood splattering his skin, and she chuckled. “Fuck off.”

He shrugged off his fur coat and set it on a nearby table, rolling his shoulders. Nicole swallowed down some blood, the coppery taste turning her empty stomach. Bobo put his finger in Nicole’s face.

“You’re going to tell me where the key is. You hear me? You’re just dragging this out for yourself. But if you want to play...we’ll play.”

He pulled a hunting knife from his belt and Nicole eyed it. Bobo smiled, wide and sickly, brandishing the knife in front of himself as he leaned down close to Nicole’s face. He licked the sharp edge with his tongue and Nicole couldn’t help but grimace.

“How about, every time you give me an answer I don’t like, I cut off something of yours. Maybe we’ll start with the fingers. You’re not worth much as a gay without your fingers, huh?” he said. 

“You’re disgusting,” Nicole said. 

“And you’re about to lose a finger.” There was a knock on the door and Bobo stood up quickly. “Don’t move.”

Nicole rolled her eyes at his stupid joke and watched as he slipped outside of the door. She pulled at the binds on her wrists again. Definitely some kind of handcuff. She could break her wrist or thumb to get out of them. She’d definitely done it before. 

Bobo ducked back in with another shit eating grin on his face. “We have a little surprise for you.”

The door swung open and a person was shoved into the room with them. Waverly fell onto the floor before the door slammed shut again, and they were alone. 

***

Wynonna smiled to herself as she heard a satisfying click and Dolls’ door swung open. 

“Sucker,” she said to herself as she stood up and dropped the paperclip she had used to pick the lock. It was a little ridiculous that they used such shitty locks in a high security building. Better for her though. She pulled out her phone as she strode down the hall. It was time to call in a favor.

***

Nicole’s heart jumped and she jostled in her chair, limbs fighting against the binds in her instinct to reach out to Waverly.

“Waves,” she gasped, chair scraping across the stone floor as she tried to get closer to her. “Waverly. Are you okay?”

Waverly slowly pushed herself up from the floor, brown hair falling in her face, and Nicole scanned her body for any kind of injuries or trauma. When she didn’t see any, she breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Nicole,” Waverly said, a small smile blooming on her face as she rushed over to her. Soft, warm hands cradled Nicole’s face and she nearly sobbed in relief, leaning into Waverly’s hand. “I was so worried.”

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Nicole said, turning her head to kiss the palm of Waverly’s hand. “I shouldn’t have said those things-”

“Ssh ssh, it’s okay,” Waverly whispered, pressing soothing kisses to Nicole’s beaten face. She could feel hot tears on her face, but wasn’t sure if they were hers or Waverly’s. “That’s not important right now. We’ll talk about it later. When you’re not tied up against your volition.”

Nicole nodded, just relieved to have Waverly close again. “Did they hurt you?”

“No, baby,” Waverly said, kneeling down in front of Nicole with her hands on her thighs. Her hazel eyes were wide and rimmed with red, tear tracks down her face. Nicole’s heart leapt painfully, every nerve in her body soothing just at the other woman’s presence.

Nicole was sure in that moment that she was in love with Waverly Earp. 

But now certainly wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Nicole said. “We have to get out of here.”

Waverly nodded and looked at the chains around Nicole’s ankles and wrists. “I’m guessing they weren’t nice enough to leave a key.”

Nicole shook her head. “How did they get you?”

“They just...jumped me outside of Gretta’s,” Waverly quickly waved off the question. “Why do they have you tied up like this?”

“They kept asking me about the key,” Nicole confessed, eyes darting to the corners of the room for cameras. She hadn’t seen any, but she didn’t want to let her guard down either way. 

“Do you have it?” Waverly asked. 

Nicole shook her head and whispered. “No, Waves, I don’t.”

Waverly frowned like she was put out and looked down at the piece of technology on her wrist. “Maybe we could use it against them if you did.”

“It wouldn’t do us any good, they’d have it,” Nicole said. 

“Just tell me where it is, maybe I can somehow get ahold of it-”

“Even if you did, we don’t know how to use it-”

“Well it’s better than nothing.”

“I can’t tell you. It’ll put you more at risk.”

Hurt moved across Waverly’s eyes and her jaw tensed. “So I’m still just an asset to you. Not a partner.”

“I didn’t say-”

“You didn’t have to.”

Nicole hung her head for a moment before looking back up at Waverly. If she couldn’t trust her, who could she trust? At this point they were both screwed anyways. “It’s back at Gretta’s. Behind the toilet.”

Waverly frowed. “Behind the toilet? Really?”

“Yeah,” Nicole.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.”

Waverly blinked up at her for a moment before squeezing her eyes shut. She pushed herself up to her feet again and chuckled. The sound that came out was low and...so unlike Waverly that Nicole felt her stomach drop. Waverly ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back.

Nicole frowned and Waverly’s smile grew.

“Well, that’s all the information I needed,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Nicole said, voice a little shaky.

“You think you’re so smart, Agent Haught,” Waverly sighed, smile still there. “You think you’re so smart and charming and that it’ll get you everywhere. That you’ll just get out of every situation. Huh?”

Nicole couldn’t even say anything, she was too shocked and it felt like her stomach was a giant knot.

“What’s the matter, Haught? Speechless for once?” Waverly let out a high laugh that was so uncharacteristically cold that a chill ran down Nicole’s spine.

“Waverly, what are you talking about?” she asked.

Waverly pouted and twirled a piece of Nicole’s hair between her fingers. “You’re not as bright as I thought you were. When I heard that Willa was still alive I figured...might as well see if she could use someone else.”

“This isn’t you, Waverly,” Nicole shook her head. “They must have brainwashed you.”

Waverly’s face hardened. “Why? Because I can’t make my own decisions? I’m stronger than you think I am, Nicole.”

“No, I know that. But this is S.W.A.N.-”

“I know perfectly well what this is, Nicole,” Waverly hissed. “It’s my family. And it’s people who think of me as as equal. And now that you’ve told me where the key is, it’s all I need.”

“You’re-...you’re lying. They got to you, you can’t-”

“What, Nicole?” Waverly hissed. “I couldn’t have possibly done this? Done something for myself for once? Why? Because I’m just an _asset_.”

“I should have never said that,” Nicole said, voice shaking. “I’m sorry.”

Waverly chuckled. “It’s a little late for that. Don’t you think?”

There was a knock on the door and Nicole shook her head. “Waves, please. This isn’t you.”

“You don’t know me, Nicole,” Waverly said, voice flat and cold. “That much is clear. And now you never will.” Waverly licked her lips, looking Nicole up and down. Her heart felt like it was trapped between two of her ribs. Squeezing and trying to escape from her chest. “I can give you one parting gift at least.”

Nicole watched, helpless as Waverly slinked towards her until their knees bumped together. She swallowed thickly, hands itching to touch Waverly even if she should be pushing her away. 

“Waverly-”

She cut her off with a finger on Nicole’s lips and a small smile. “One for the road, huh?”

Waverly leaned down and Nicole got a wave of her perfume in her nostrils. She could feel Waverly’s hair tickling the side of her face and soft, strong fingers threading in the hair at the base of her neck. Nicole couldn’t help but tip her head back, lips close to Waverly’s as she smiled down at her. Waverly closed the gap between them, their lips sliding together. 

Nicole could only kiss Waverly back, their lips moving together slow and filthy. She felt Waverly’s tongue push into her mouth, thick and sexy, as she ran her tongue over the roof of Nicole’s mouth.

It made her shiver, but not unpleasantly. There was something in Waverly’s kiss that made Nicole feel at ease. Like the last five minutes didn’t just happen. 

With that, Waverly pulled away, hand falling from her hair as she stood up. Nicole stared in awe, spine still tingling from the kiss as she watched Waverly stand up to her full height. With one last look, Waverly turned back around and left the room. 

As the door clicked shut, Nicole pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and she tasted metal. But not blood. She spit the handcuff key out into her lap and let out a relieved laugh.

***

Valdez sat with her hands on her knees, inhaling deeply. Something like static made the hair on her arm stand up and she hummed.

She could sense the angel. They were nearby. The angel, the one strong enough to handle the bug without it overtaking them.

Another deep breath and it was like the wind was calling her. Someone looking at her might swear they saw the tattoos move along her arms. The bug...it was close by. Valdez smiled to herself and stood up from where she sat cross legged. 

It was nearby. And she would get it.

***

Nicole had managed to scoop the key back between her lips and turn her head to drop it over her shoulder and into her open palm. She still wasn’t sure what Waverly’s deal was. If she was working for S.W.A.N., why did she leave her the key? Maybe Nicole wasn’t smart like Waverly had said. Or maybe it was the concussion that Nicole was sure she had from all the punching to the head.

Right now all she was focused on was getting out of here and getting to the key before Waverly did. Or S.W.A.N. or...whoever. Nicole really wasn’t sure anymore.

With a painful tweaking of her wrist, Nicole managed to get the key into the lock of the handcuffs and twisted it off. She smiled in triumph as her wrist popped free. She shook out her hands, handcuff hanging off the other wrist still as she bent down to unlock the handcuffs around her ankles. 

The door clicked as the lock opened again and Nicole quickly put her hands behind her back like she was still tied up. Bobo walked in, knife still out and sick smile back on his face.

“So I heard you had a great reunion with little miss bossy, then?” he said, brandishing the knife in front of him. 

Nicole spit at his feet as he got closer. “Fuck off, asshole.”

“Hope you also told your girlfriend to say goodbye to your fingers.”

Nicole watched carefully as he stepped closer. When he was just in reach, she jerked the hand with the handcuff still attached to it up so that the loose end of the chain wrapped around his wrist holding the knife. His eyes widened in shock and Nicole smiled in satisfaction as she stood up from the chair, jerked the hand with the knife to the side, and headbutted him. His neck snapped back at the impact and she brought her knee up into his crotch so hard that he doubled over, hand dropping the knife. 

With his wrist still wrapped in the chain of the handcuff, Nicole took a wide swing at his face with her free hand and sent him keeling sideways onto the ground, passed out. Pulling the handcuff key from her pocket, she undid the other side from her wrist and flipped him onto his stomach. She handcuffed his hands behind his back and moved on to his feet, locking them tight so that he was stuck on the ground. 

“Take that, you sonuvabitch,” Nicole said, quickly frisking him for any weapons she could take. There was a Glock in the back of his pants that she quickly transferred to her own, and she picked up his knife. Taking another look around the room for anything else she could use as a weapon, Nicole nodded to herself. 

Now to find Waverly and to get the fuck out of there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!
> 
> Welcome to the penultimate chapter. Get some tissues ready for the end. Technically this is the last chapter and the next one is an epilogue but...semantics.
> 
> Again, thank you to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) in this chapter in particular for letting me get away with things that may be _physically_ impossible...but not according to the movies I watch. Love you <3

Waverly ran her hand through her long hair. She could still taste Nicole on her lips, the taint of her blood. Swallowing thickly, she walked down the hall of the underground. Her fingers tugged anxiously on the chain around her neck and she squeezed the silver pendent between her fingers, feeling the metal engraving of the rune pressing into her skin. She knew her finger would retain the mirror image of the protection symbol, pressed into her skin, and wondered if it would help. She felt the ghost of Nicole’s fingers from when she put the necklace on Waverly back in Italy. It felt like a lifetime ago. 

Her heart broke when she thought about the stunned look on Nicole’s face when she thought she’d turned. Waverly was still mad at Nicole for what she said, but she knew it wouldn’t last. Something deep in her belly told Waverly that it would take a lot more than that to keep her away from Nicole Haught. 

It had been the worst, talking to Nicole like that, but she knew it was the only way to get them both out of here alive. Nicole would be able to fight her way out and Waverly would slip out as soon as she had the opportunity. Willa was keeping a careful eye on her, though.

She took a look at her surroundings, wishing she had more time to explore. Even if the place was super creepy. Old skulls stared back at her, eyes blank and teeth stretched into a horrifying rictus. Judging her. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest as she walked up to what appeared to be a regular wall. Waverly knocked on a skull midway up the wall with two missing front teeth and a door popped open. She walked into a room showcasing the large imposing oak desk that Willa sat behind.

The room looked like a warm, old library in a university somewhere, a heater in the corner and an ornate rug spread out on the floor. The only thing out of the ordinary was the overabundance of paper cranes in various shapes and sizes hanging around the room.

Her stomach turned at the sight of her once-thought-dead sister. Lying to Nicole had been hard. To say the least. But she had to get her out and get everyone off their scent. This was the only way. 

“Did the ginger butch talk?” Willa said, lips tight and eyes disinterested.

Waverly felt herself bristle but nodded. It felt like all those times that Willa had thought she caught Waverly in some sort of lie and couldn’t wait to run to their daddy about it. Willa had always been a bitch.

“It’s back at Gretta’s. Behind the toilet,” Waverly said, sitting in a chair on the other side of the desk. “But don’t hurt Gretta. When you go to get it.”

Willa rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Still a goody two shoes,” she muttered to herself. “We won’t hurt her. She’s an opportunist anyways. Might be more valuable to us alive, eventually..”

“I just don’t want people to die unnecessarily,” Waverly said as Willa picked up a phone on the desk. Waverly watched as she called...whoever, and gave the command to go get the key from Gretta’s.

“We’ll beat that out of you sooner or later,” Willa said, with a careless flick of her wrist. She leaned forward on her elbows, looking intensely at Waverly. “In all honesty though, I’m glad you finally decided to join me. I know I gave you a hard time when we were young-”

Waverly couldn’t help the bark of a laugh that escaped her mouth.

“-but you’re not as bad as I remember. Must not be _that_ stupid if you’re here.”

Waverly’s arms tightened over her chest and she raised an eyebrow at her. “Surprised you didn’t go looking to recruit Wynonna.”

“I like her better than you, but she’s got a weird nobility about her I could never get her to let go of. You’re more easily turned, she’s more stubborn. Probably because you’re not an actual Earp.”

Willa said it so casually that Waverly almost missed it. Her frown deepened and she shook her head. “What?”

Willa took in her stunned expression and laughed. “Oh my god. She never told you.”

“Told me _what_?”

“You’re not an Earp,” Willa said, finding far too much joy in the situation. “When Mama brought you home from the hospital, Daddy was _livid_.”

“If I’m not an Earp, what am I?” Waverly asked, heart sinking into her stomach.

There was the sound of a gunshot in the hall and Willa groaned. “Great. What now?”

Willa pulled a long barreled revolver out from her desk and made strides towards the door. A thousand questions raced through Waverly’s mind, but she tried to push them away and quickly stood up. “Shouldn’t I have a weapon?”

“As if I trust you with a weapon yet,” Willa sneered, before carefully opening up the door to the hall and peeking out.

Waverly’s fists tightened at her sides as she watched Willa swing the door wider open to an unsuspecting Nicole who looked at her with wide eyes and a lowered weapon. 

“Nice of you to join us, Haught,” Willa said, gun raised to Nicole’s head.

Nicole’s eyes darted over Willa’s shoulder to Waverly before she looked back. She had one hand raised and slowly kneeled down to set the gun on the ground with the other. 

“I was just-”

Willa swung the gun, hitting Nicole in the side of the face, sending her tilting onto the stone floor with a grunt.

“Shut up, I’m not interested in whatever excuse you have,” Willa said too calmly. “Bobo is useless as usual.” Willa pulled back the hammer on the revolver. “At least Waverly gets to watch her little girlfriend die.”

Acting on instinct, Waverly picked up the wooden chair she’d been sitting in and swung it at the back of Willa’s head before she could shoot. The wood shattered, sending Willa falling forward onto the ground, passed out. Waverly stared in shock at Willa and the two severed chair legs in her hands. Nicole blinked at Willa for a moment, then quickly picked up her own gun and Willa’s, standing up and looking quickly around. The only sound was the harsh click of Nicole decocking Willa’s revolver, and a deep snore from Willa herself.

Waverly stood there, throat dry and adrenaline running through her veins. Did Nicole hate her? She wouldn’t blame her if she did. 

Nicole smiled crookedly at Waverly, beautiful even through the bruised eye, blood on her face, and swollen lip. “You had me goin’ there for a second, baby.” 

Waverly smiled in relief and dropped the legs of the chair. She leapt over Willa’s body and collided with Nicole, who grunted as the air was knocked out of her. 

“I’m so sorry,” Waverly whispered into her chest. “I had to. I had to get them off our scent.”

“It’s okay,” Nicole wheezed. “But I think I have a broken rib-”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Waverly quickly let Nicole go and cupped her face instead. “I’m going to patch you up as soon as we get out of this mess. Okay?”

“Yeah, but let’s get out of here first,” Nicole said, handing Waverly Willa’s gun. “Come on. We have to get to Gretta’s before S.W.A.N.”

Waverly smirked and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small glass case with the key rattling inside it. Just a plain stone, a tourist’s trinket, if someone didn’t know any better.

Nicole’s eyes widened.

“You had it the whole time.”

“Obviously,” Waverly said, stuffing it back into her pocket. “Now come on, I know the way out of here.” She reached down and undid what looked like a regular bracelet from Willa’s wrist. “It gets her in all the rooms.”

Standing back up, Waverly placed one last soft kiss on Nicole’s cheek and started down the hallway. She could feel Nicole close behind as she peeked around the corner. There were eight guards, standing there in what looked like black tactical gear with baseball caps on their heads. 

Waverly had to admit, she was very impressed with the operation that S.W.A.N. had here. They had a large underground compound, what seemed like hundreds of highly trained guards, and more weapons that Waverly could even begin to imagine. Clearly they knew what they were doing.

She looked over at Nicole who had a black eye, a split lip, and generally looked a little worse for wear.

“There’s about ten of them,” Waverly said, looking her over. “Think you’ll be okay?”

Nicole chuckled and checked her gun’s magazine before licking some blood off her lip. “I’ve fought my way out of way worse situations with way worse injuries.”

Waverly couldn’t help but smile to see a little of Nicole’s cockiness come back to the surface. “Fine. Let’s do it then.”

“You go first and I’ll cover you?”

“Deal.”

Waverly cocked the revolver, held it out in front of her and quickly turned the corner. She shot off three quick shots as Nicole kneeled on one knee right behind her, shooting four. The one guard that managed to miss getting shot bum-rushed Waverly and tackled her to the ground.

She hit the floor with a huff as the air got knocked out of her. Nicole punched the guard in the side of the head and he grunted, twisting to grab for Nicole. Waverly took the chance to buck up her hips and knock him off balance, giving her the opportunity to swiftly move so that he was on his stomach with his arms behind his back and Waverly was pinning his hips with a knee. 

Nicole pulled some handcuffs out of her back pocket and handed them to Waverly with a smirk. “I was going to save these for later. But-”

Waverly grabbed them from Nicole with a roll of her eyes. “I’m still mad at you, you know.”

Nicole’s face sobered immediately, her smile softening from cocky to just sweet and apologetic. “Sorry.” Waverly locked the guard’s hands behind his back as he struggled. “I have another pair anyways.”

She stood up and Waverly followed suit. Nicole walked over to one of the downed guards and lined her shoe along the bottom of one of his as if checking size.

“What are you doing?” Waverly frowned as she used Willa’s bracelet to open up a nearby door. She had taken Waverly down there earlier after she surrendered to them, to take her earpiece, eye camera, and gun. Nicole’s gun and equipment had been lying on the floor in a corner.

“We’re changing.” Nicole dragged the body into the room and dumped it before going back out in the hall and pulling the nearest body into the room too. “No way there’s gonna be a guard as little as you so we gotta improvise.”

“Why do we need to change?” Waverly said, watching Nicole grimace a little as she pulled her shirt over her head. Admittedly, her eyes scanned down to Nicole’s torso, taking a moment to linger on her abs before eyeing the spattering of bruises blooming over her pale skin. 

“Blending in, obviously.” Nicole said, shimmying her way out of her pants. Waverly hated how her mouth dropped open a little bit as she took in Nicole’s thighs. “Come on, get dressed.”

Waverly managed to shake herself out of her staring and started changing. She kept her own shirt and just took the guard’s bulletproof vest, as Nicole traded out her sneakers for his boots. 

Once she was dressed, she put her equipment back in her pocket. Nicole strapped on her own gun belt and Waverly pulled the baseball cap onto her head.

“Our communications are fried,” Nicole said, as she tested out her earpiece. 

“No secret contact to get us out of this one, huh?” Waverly teased. 

Nicole chuckled. “Not this time.”

“Better get going then,” Waverly said as they walked out of the room. She took a moment to remember the floor layout from where they brought her in. There were two exits, she wasn’t sure why, but she heard the guards talking about the south exit and the east entrance earlier. The east entrance was definitely the closest. “This way.”

They started back down the hall, managing to avoid some other guards in connecting halls. Maybe Nicole had a point about this blending in thing. But it wouldn’t last for long. It was only a matter of time until someone saw a body and sounded the alarm. Waverly took one last turn and was relieved to see the exit at the end of the hall. A ladder ascended to the floor above, that then led to a narrow spiral staircase that would take them to the hidden entrance in the mausoleum of an old cemetary. There was no way she ever would have found it on her own.

She practically rushed towards the exit, just one final hall to pass before it. Just as they crossed the opening, a tall imposing woman stepped out of the shadows. She had to be at least six feet tall, with even a few inches on Nicole. She had broad shoulders and fierce looking tattoos that ran down her arms. Waverly swore she saw one move. There was something about her that was vaguely familiar, but Waverly couldn’t place it. Like when you see a painting in a museum and feel like you’re already familiar with it after having read about it in a book.

She held her hand out to them. “Give it to me.”

Waverly frowned and instinctively put her wrist close to her chest. “What are you talking about?”

Nicole stepped in front of Waverly, firearm raised at the chest of the person. “I don’t know who you are but you don’t look like a member of S.W.A.N.”

“Valdez. I have been the guardian of this artifact for centuries. It was thought lost and I was in a deep sleep, but your angel activated it and it called to me. I was helped here by other guardians,” she said, face unmoving. “Give me the technology. I hear that is what people in this time are more comfortable referring to such a thing as.”

Waverly picked up on an interesting accent that she couldn’t place, something South American, but nothing that she could pinpoint. 

“You’re saying you’re hundreds of years old?” Waverly tilted her head and Valdez just gave a curt nod. “Fascinating.”

“I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re not getting it. You are right about one thing though, Waverly is an angel,” Nicole said, giving Waverly a wink over her shoulder. She blushed despite herself. “Either step out of the way, or stay here and get shot, because we’re leaving and you’re in front of the exit.”

Valdez looked behind her like she just noticed the exit and turned back around. “Your weapons are no use on me. Give it to me.”

“No,” Nicole said simply.

Nicole fired and the bullet bounced off of Valdez’s chest, ricocheting across the hall. “What the-”

Waverly stepped forward and pressed the bracelet to Valdez’s chest but it didn’t shock her like she was expecting. The bracelet vibrated on her arm, symbols glowing so brightly that she could barely look at it. The snake tattoos on Valdez’s arms definitely started moving then, slithering and shaking.

Valdez looked down at it. “I have never seen it take this shape before.”

Nicole and Waverly stared at the bracelet as the metal morphed and flowed; little balls of what looked like electricity sprayed from the bracelet and embedded themselves to the walls around them. Valdez grunted with a frown and looked at them closely. 

“We need to leave this place,” she said flatly. She pointed at one of the balls. “These are what your people call explosives.”

“Well fuck,” Nicole said, gun falling in front of her.

“I know another way out,” Waverly said, quickly turning and running back down the hall. Nicole followed close behind and the bracelet kept spewing out the little electric charges as they ran, Valdez forgotten behind them. As they turned a corner, Waverly saw Willa and Bobo coming at them from the other way.

“Gotta run a little faster, baby,” Nicole said, hand on the small of Waverly’s back as they moved into a hard sprint. A bullet whizzed past them and Waverly ducked with a surprised scream. Nicole pointed her gun over her shoulder and shot; the distinct sounds of bodies hitting the floor behind them spurred Waverly on. 

She could see the exit up ahead and hear the bullets being shot at them, as well as Nicole’s gun responding. But all Waverly could focus on was the way the bracelet around her wrist was vibrating intensely, energy surrounding them and attaching to the walls. It was about to blow, Waverly could feel it. They finally got to the ladder that led up to the next level.

The bracelet started beeping and Waverly stopped to look at it.

“Go go go,” Nicole practically pushed Waverly up the ladder.

“Hey!”

“I’ll cover you. Just go!”

A bullet hit the ladder near Waverly’s hand and she quickly scrambled up, looking down the hole to see Nicole shooting at the people running for them. 

“Come on!” Waverly said, lying on her belly and shooting at the oncoming guards. Nicole quickly shimmied up the ladder and Waverly helped her up. They began to run up the narrow stone stairwell that led to the surface, the sound of footsteps still behind them and slowly catching up. “Remind me to do more cardio when we’re out of here,” Waverly gasped.

Finally they got to the surface and the bracelet’s beeping got faster before it stopped immediately. There was a deep rumbling under their feet as the electric charges exploded behind them, fire bubbling out of the tunnels and up the ladder as they pushed the heavy door blocking the entrance open. They both shoved their bodies against the door and it fell open. Nicole practically tackled Waverly to the ground, covering her body with her own as the fire and smoke from the explosion belched out of the entrance to the crypt that was disguised as a mausoleum. 

Waverly couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the explosion, and as it ended, it became apparent that her ears were ringing. 

Nicole rolled off of her when it was safe, and Waverly noticed her brow was furrowed and she was clutching her leg. Looking down, she saw blood spilling from between Nicole’s fingers. Waverly quickly cradled her face.

“Baby, what happened?” she asked.

“Just some shrapnel,” Nicole gasped; sitting up, she ripped one of the sleeves off of her long sleeve shirt. She tied it just above the wound as the sound of coughing and people moving in the tunnel started to make itself known. “Come on, we gotta go.”

“You’re hurt.” 

“We have no choice,” Nicole said, pushing herself up, even as she groaned in pain. Waverly quickly shut the mausoleum door to hopefully slow down anyone following them. 

“I hid the motorcycle nearby,” Waverly said, wrapping her arm around Nicole’s back to help her walk.

“I got it-”

“Stop being stubborn and let me help you,” Waverly said. Nicole hesitated for a moment before putting her arm over Waverly’s shoulders. They moved quickly through the cemetery towards the street where the motorcycle was parked. Nicole started towards the bike and Waverly steered her away. “Nah uh, you’re getting in the sidecar. You can’t drive like this.”

“I’m not getting in the sidecar,” Nicole scoffed. 

“Hello again,” Valdez said as she stepped out of the cemetery gate.

“Fine! I’ll get in the sidecar,” Nicole said, pouring herself into the sidecar as Waverly scrambled onto the bike. She kicked it to life and tore through a narrow alleyway just as what looked like an armored car turned the corner behind them. “Ah fuck.”

“Will they never give up?” Waverly wondered through gritted teeth as she turned the motorcycle around and started driving. 

She sped through the town, sun rising overhead on a new day and the streets fairly empty. A few people walked along the sidewalks, probably to their jobs at bakeries and boutiques. None seemed bothered by the motorcycle and fleet of armored vans ripping past them. 

They got to a busier part of the city and Waverly was sure she could lose them there. 

“If you go towards the river, I know somewhere we can lose them up there,” Nicole said. 

Waverly took a sharp turn down another alley, just as the gunfire started. There was a sharp sting on her ribs, hot and painful, but she just tucked herself low in the seat and kept driving. One of the vans managed to fit down the alley with them and Nicole turned to shoot at it over her shoulder. 

“I got them. When you get to the other side, go over the bridge,” Nicole shouted. 

Waverly chanced a look over at Nicole. Her red hair was being swept over her face, sticking to her lips as she shot back at the van. Each bullet just bounced off the surface, not having any more of an effect than a bug on a windshield. 

They drove over a long bridge deeper into the city. A couple of cars passed and up ahead were some delivery trucks. 

Waverly looked down as a bullet whizzed awfully close to Nicole’s shoulder, grazing the metal of the sidecar.

Waverly looked up and saw that they were hurtling towards a very narrow space between two semi trucks. She looked behind her and S.W.A.N. was close behind, almost closing in. There was no way the motorcycle and sidecar would make it through. 

“Uh, Nicole.” 

Nicole turned back to look at trucks ahead of them. “Huh.”

“What now?”

“Remember France when we threw ourselves over the bridge?”

“You mean when you dragged me over the bridge?” 

“Yes. I’m doing that but by myself.”

Nicole looked down at the brackets holding the sidecar to the motorcycle.

“Nicole-”

“Just keep driving!” she yelled at Waverly as she positioned herself on the edge of the sidecar closest to the street.

“I have to swerve!” Waverly said as they got closer and closer to the trucks. 

“Don’t you fucking dare. I got this,” Nicole pulled back her good leg and kicked the side of the motorcycle with full strength. Waverly jerked a little but managed to keep straight.

“What are you doing?”

Nicole didn’t answer, she just kicked again and the brackets holding the sidecar and motorcycle together strained. One more kick and they broke, sending the sidecar shooting away from the motorcycle just as it raced between the two trucks. Waverly watched as Nicole tucked herself back into the sidecar just as it went under one of the semis, just barely clearing it. The small vehicle tilted on its one wheel, sparks flying as the metal hit the cement.

Waverly looked behind her and watched all the S.W.A.N. cars braking hard behind the trucks, unable to get past. As Waverly got beyond the semis, she pulled over just in time to watch Nicole’s sidecar crash into the side of the bridge and flip over into the river.

***

The cold water slapped at Nicole’s body as the sidecar sunk beneath the surface. She quickly pushed at the bottom and swam up, trying to ignore every ache in her body, every broken bone she was sure she had, as her brain struggled to see through the fog of her concussions. 

As she broke the surface, she took a deep breath and swam to the shore. She pulled herself onto the small dirt shore before the sheer face of the wall that reached up to the German streets. Coughing, she sputtered out some water and let herself rest for just a moment. But no sooner than her lungs stopped burning did she hear the cocking of a gun at her head. 

Slowly, she turned to see Willa standing over her, anger apparent on her face as she stared Nicole down. Any last shred of hope that Nicole had left fluttered away in that moment, and she was sure she was going to die.

“Where the fuck did you even come from,” Nicole gasped, still struggling for air.

“You and Waverly think you’re so fucking smart,” Willa hissed. “Waverly may have gotten away with the tech, but at least she won’t have gotten everything.” Willa managed a smirk through tight lips. “Say your last words, Haught.”

Nicole tried to push herself up to her knees but Willa’s heel pressed into her spine and kept her on the ground. She took a deep breath and the dirt invaded her lungs, making her want to cough.

“Fuck you, Willa,” Nicole spat.

“Original.”

Nicole clenched her jaw and shut her eyes, ready for the sharp ring of the bullet. She wondered if she’d even feel it or if it would go black and she’d wake up...somewhere else. Hopefully she wouldn’t feel it, but she had a feeling there’d be just a quick flash of pain before the end. 

She just hoped that Waverly could get out, and wouldn’t have to be the one who found her. With one last fleeting feeling of Waverly’s kiss, the sound of a shot rang through Nicole’s ears. 

Her body stiffened on the ground and the sound dissolved into a muffled ringing. She blinked, slowly peering through squinted lids, only to see Willa dead on the ground. Nicole pushed herself up and looked around for the source of the shot to see Waverly standing with the gun raised. Her eyes were wide and face pale as she stared at Willa’s body down the barrel of her gun. 

“Oh, Waverly,” Nicole said, limping over to Waverly and gathering her in her arms despite the aches of her body telling her not to.

Waverly clung to the front of her shirt and took a rattly breath. “Let’s just go home.”

“You got it, baby,” Nicole said, kissing along the side of Waverly’s face tenderly. Waverly pressed her face into Nicole’s neck and she felt her breath against her skin. The air around them began to feel like static and Nicole hugged Waverly tighter as Valdez jumped down from the bridge like it was nothing, landing on one knee like some kind of superhero.

They watched in awe as she stood up, hand outreached like it had been back in S.W.A.N. headquarters. “Give me the technology. It was never meant to leave the protective pyramids, and I am tasked with taking it back.”

Nicole and Waverly looked at each other, then back at Valdez. 

“Prove it,” Nicole said. “I’m not just handing it over.”

“She did make it do that explosion thing,” Waverly whispered from where she’d tucked herself into Nicole’s chest. 

Valdez walked up to them and closed her hand around the bracelet. She said a few things in a language that Nicole had never heard before, so strange it almost sounded like a song, and she could see a glow begin from between Valdez’s fingers. When she released her hand from Waverly’s wrist, the gold looked almost like mercury as it slithered its way off of her wrist and up Valdez’s fingers. It wrapped around her finger and froze into the shape of a ring. 

Waverly stared at it, horror and fascination battling for the top emotion in her mind. 

“Oh,” Waverly said, holding out her wrist to get a better look.

A strange, heavy wind began to whip around them as the sound of propellers overwhelmed them. They looked up and saw a helicopter slowly lowering itself down to the bridge.

“What the-”

Wynonna’s head popped out of the helicopter and she waved. “Waves! I came to get you!”

Nicole frowned as Waverly yelled up at her sister. “You’re a little late!”

“I see that,” Wynonna said, eyes sobering when she saw the body next to them. “You don’t need a helicopter then?”

“Not really,” Waverly said. Nicole looked back to where Valdez had been standing but she was gone. She frowned, dropping her arms from around Waverly and looked around, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Waves,” Nicole shouted over the sound. “Valdez is gone.”

Waverly looked back down, a frown deepening on her face. “What the balls?”

Wynonna dropped the ladder from the helicopter and they clambered up, Nicole trying not to show she was struggling with her leg, but still needing Waverly to help her up to the top. She collapsed onto the floor of the helicopter, clutching her aching ribs as she tried to get a good breath. Waverly pulled her head into her lap and leaned over her, pressing soft kisses over her face.

Nicole let out a relieved laugh, some of the adrenaline slowly draining from her and making her limbs tired.

“Where’s the tech?” Wynonna asked. Nicole turned her head into Waverly’s stomach, nuzzling against her warmth as relief slowly flooded her.

“It’s gone,” Waverly said.

“What?” Wynonna basically shouted.

“It’s safe. Back where it came from,” Waverly said calmly, arms more fully wrapping around Nicole’s body as she leaned over her. Wynonna started to sputter, rage filling her expression.

“Those S.W.A.N. assholes! I’ll —”

”Not S.W.A.N., Wynonna,” Waverly said tiredly. “I’ll explain later” 

She leaned down to kiss Nicole lightly and she sighed into the kiss, one hand gripping the front of Waverly’s shirt. 

“We did it,” Nicole breathed against her lips.

“We did,” Waverly smiled, fingers gently brushing Nicole’s hair from her face. “We did.”

***

Waverly had always hated hospitals. 

When she was younger, hospitals meant either she or Wynonna was hurt. Probably another broken arm that Waverly would have to lie about. She was never allowed to say how she really got them: from her daddy’s hand. She had to make up some lie or half truth. Usually involving Wynonna pushing her off of something. 

It didn’t seem to make a difference that this was a CSIS hospital and not a real hospital. There were only a handful of rooms and it was connected to their main headquarters. She gripped the strap of her purse that was slung across her chest and increased her speed, the sound of her heels echoing along the sterile halls. 

Finally she saw Nicole’s room in sight and breathed a sigh of relief. She smiled, stomach warming a little bit at the thought of Nicole.

They had only gotten back the day before, but had both been taken off to seperate rooms to be patched up and recover. They had just released Waverly this morning while Nicole was in surgery for the shrapnel in her leg, so she ran home for a proper shower and clothes. Then she raced back to the headquarters to see Nicole.

For some reason, she was nervous to see her. She was worried that now Nicole might be tired of her. The glitz and glamor of being on a spy mission was gone. No more adrenaline pumping through their veins, no more close quarters and sexy costumes. 

Waverly felt...all together naked. Even though she couldn’t wait to get back in Nicole’s arms, she was still worried. Worried, but not enough to keep her away from Nicole.

With one deep breath, Waverly pushed into the room with a wide smile. Nicole was sleeping on the bed and Waverly quietly closed the door behind her. The soft sound of the clicking made Nicole startle from her sleep and Waverly gave her an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, quickly walking to Nicole’s bedside. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Nicole was patched up, but in a blue hospital gown and nestled beneath the covers. She smiled as her eyes focused on Waverly and gestured for her to come closer.

“Hey, baby,” Nicole said, voice scratchy as she sat up a little in the bed, frown on her face. 

Waverly’s smile widened and she made her way to the edge of the bed. “Hey. How do you feel?”

“Drugged up,” Nicole said, gesturing with her hand connected to the IV machine. “But pretty good. You?”

“I just had a graze on my side,” Waverly said with a shrug. “My first battle scar.”

“I got a few of those myself on this last mission,” Nicole chuckled, gesturing for Waverly to get into the bed with her. Waverly wasted no time in taking off her shoes, setting her purse down and crawling under the starched white sheet with Nicole. 

“It’s okay, I hear chicks dig scars,” Waverly winked at Nicole as they both settled onto their sides. Waverly gripped the front of Nicole’s gown in one fist, the other finding its way to her hip. 

Nicole cupped Waverly’s cheek and kissed her gently. “Yeah, they do.”

Waverly hummed and pulled away so that only their foreheads were pressed together. “So.”

“So,” Nicole repeated, finger tracing the top of Waverly’s nose. “That was a crazy few days, huh?”

“You can say that again,” Waverly laughed.

“God, real life is going to be so boring after this,” Nicole chuckled, twisting a piece of Waverly’s hair around her finger and releasing it.

Waverly’s stomach dropped at Nicole’s words and her smile faded. Her worst fear was coming true. Nicole was going to be bored of her. There was so much to talk about, so much to discuss but-

“What are we? What are we...going to do?” Waverly asked, grip tightening on Nicole’s hip.

Nicole shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m CSIS, you’re FBI...we don’t live in the same country!” Waverly said, fear creeping into her voice. “I suppose we can try long distance-”

“Waves,” Nicole said, an amused smile on her face. “We don’t have to make any decisions right now, okay? But I want you to know that...I really really like you. And I want to be with you.”

“But-”

Nicole silenced Waverly with a kiss and she melted into it, her heart beating hard out of her chest. They kissed softly for a few moments before Waverly had to pull back for air. Nicole’s cheeks were flushed red, lips swollen and even through the black eye, her eyes shone. It made Waverly’s heart squeeze in her chest.

“Waverly, where you go, I go,” Nicole said. “Okay?”

Waverly’s own smile faltered, fear and elation making her heart skip a beat. Nicole was going to be bored of her, Waverly could feel it. The voice deep in her brain told her that Nicole wouldn’t be satisfied with life in the CSIS, not after all the adventures she’d been on. She could feel her own heart beating in a way that was starting to feel like love, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything. It would only hurt in the end, after all.

“I’m...really tired,” Nicole said, eyelids drooping. “But can you stay with me? At least until I fall asleep?”

“Of course,” Waverly said, propping herself up against the pillows so that Nicole’s head could settle in her lap. Her heart ached as she ran her fingers through thick red hair before gently tracing the outline of Nicole’s ear. She wanted to commit this to memory. This very moment when she could say she was falling so deeply in love with Nicole and that Nicole cared about her. Something she wanted to hold on to for as long as she could.

“Thank you,” Nicole said, arm cuddling Waverly’s legs and hand on her upper thigh as she began to drift to sleep. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

“Of course, baby,” Waverly whispered. A small smile flitted across Nicole’s lips just as she drifted to sleep. As her breathing evened out, Waverly felt the hot press of tears behind her eyes when she realized what she had to do.

***

The next day, Nicole sat and waited for Waverly, but she never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone who decided to come back even if Waverly made the decision to walk away from Nicole. The signs were there all along. This whole fic has been Waverly fighting her insecurities and feelings of inadequacy with her job, going out on a mission she wasn't trained for and being less experienced than Nicole. And you know what makes forced separation a hell of a lot easier? Living in different countries. So here we go again to see what the gang is all doing six months later. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, to [Lucky](https://twitter.com/LuckyWantsTo) for being awesome and helping me through this logistical monster of a fic I've held off on writing for over a year because I kept getting overwhelmed by plot other than "they want to bone". You're the real MVP.

Waverly adjusted the heavy bag on her shoulder as she walked through the CSIS halls to the debriefing room. She had the book she’d been searching for for six months clutched to her chest, with a bookmark in the page of drawings found on some ancient Mayan ruins. The data wasn’t with the research they had about the ancient tech, she’d found it hidden away in Mattie’s collection. One of the books miraculously untouched by the fire. Waverly could smell the hint of smoke coming from its pages, and it weighed heavily on her heart. 

But as she started to think about Mattie, she found herself thinking about Nicole and her heart hurt even more. It hurt so badly that she was sure her heart went numb.

She hadn’t seen Nicole since that day in the hospital. She waited for Nicole to fall asleep then kissed her goodbye. Waverly’s heart couldn’t take Nicole deciding that Waverly wasn’t interesting enough outside of a mission. Nicole lived in a different _country_. She was at the top of her organization and could have any girl she wanted, why would she wait around and be in a long distance relationship with a silly CSIS agent?

Not to mention the fact that she had lied to her. It was still a fact that stuck in the back of Waverly’s mind. After the mission was over, she was too distracted and relieved to bring it up to a drugged up and healing Nicole, but Waverly couldn’t forget it. To hear her sister was alive and kill her on the same day was...a lot more to unpack than she might have originally realized. Most nights she’d wake up covered in cold sweat, thinking of Willa’s dead eyes staring back up at her. 

Her and Wynonna had spent many a drunken nights working through the whole ordeal of losing your sister, getting her back and then losing her again. 

With all this, it was easier for everyone for Waverly to just...drop it. At least that’s what she told herself. Waverly told everyone at CSIS not to give Nicole her personal phone number or email so she had no way to contact her. She hadn’t realized how much each attempt Nicole made to get ahold of her would hurt so badly. 

Waverly subconsciously fingered the protection rune necklace around her neck. The one she hadn’t taken off since Nicole put it on her in Italy.

Nicole sent her a letter to the general CSIS address every week. Waverly didn’t read any of them at first, letting them pile up on her desk. But on one particular case where she was Wynonna’s handler, she did a lot of sitting and just watching, and the letters stared back at her. After some heckling from Chrissy, she finally opened them. 

The first few letters were Nicole apologizing profusely and telling Waverly she would do anything for her. She would do whatever Waverly wanted to get her back. 

_Every day I think of you. Every morning I wake up and just for a moment, let myself remember what it was like to wake up next to you and in those moments is when I’m happiest. I miss you, Waverly. With every piece of my soul._

Nicole’s words haunted her.

She ended up crying at her desk and shoving all the letters deep back into a drawer where she couldn’t see them.

Waverly missed Nicole. Even though she was trying desperately not to. She missed her.

And Nicole for some reason still wanted her even though she’d _left_ her. Abandoned her in the hospital without a hint of a goodbye.

Foolishly, she thought her feelings would fade as time went on and the excitement of the mission died down. But they hadn’t. She even tried going on dates again. At one point, she’d been so desperate to forget Nicole that she went home with Beth. It wasn’t until they were on the bed half naked that Waverly realized that she couldn’t bring herself to stop thinking about Nicole. Even a couple of quick rendezvous in the closet of the CSIS lab with Rosita weren’t enough to take her mind off of Nicole. 

Especially when the last time, Wynonna made a point of opening the closet, walking in and telling Waverly about the mission she was about to go on. Wynonna just mentioned Italy and the dam around Waverly’s heart broke, tears coming to the surface as Rosita let her cry against her chest. 

The tryst with Rosita had at least started out innocently enough. CSIS had interviewed Waverly to get all the information about what happened on the mission, but there was no follow up. Every time Waverly tried to get more info on the investigation it went nowhere. She couldn’t even find a record of her own interview. It was like it had never happened.

She and Rosita had been working on tracing back the tech to see how it even got into Doc’s hands, for Wynonna to get ahold of. They managed to trace it back to 1697, the first time it appeared in records, when two Spanish soldiers who were ransacking a Mayan village reported an older woman who wore a beautiful gold necklace that “bit” them every time they tried to take it from her. 

They ended up killing her and the necklace turned into a gold snake, slithering along the ground and up one of their legs, killing him instantly. The other soldier ran away and there were no similar stories documented until World War Two when a clerk made a small note about a mysterious piece of metal resembling a lipstick tube logged in some things that the Nazis took from a private collection in Poland. The simple reference logged the item as “Ein Maya-Artefakt”. 

Diving into all the research around the tech kept Waverly busy at least. It helped distract her from far more distracting things... like Nicole. But Waverly got it together and just stopped...thinking about Nicole. Well, tried anyways. Still, red hair haunted her.

Especially when she’d dream of a head of red hair bobbing between her thighs, bringing her over the edge. Or above her, or on her breast, or whatever iteration her brain decided to torture her with, causing her to wake up with a pounding between her thighs and an ache in her chest.

It was red hair she was thinking of when she turned the corner of the CSIS headquarters on her way to the handler room and ran directly into Dolls’ chest. 

“Oof, sorry, sir-”

“Earp, we have a mission for you,” Dolls said without another comment. “Come to my office.”

“Uh, Wynonna is-”

“Chrissy has Wynonna handled for now,” Dolls said as he turned and headed back to his office. Waverly scurried after him, practically jogging to keep up with his long strides. “It’s a simple mission. Shouldn’t take more than a day.”

“That sounds familiar,” Waverly said under her breath as she tucked some hair behind her ear. 

A hint of a smile flashed across Dolls’ serious face before he opened his office door for her. “I promise, I’m serious this time. You’re going to Paris where you can just pick up a package and head back. Easy.”

Waverly frowned, something about the way Dolls had his hands folded in front of him and was looking up at her with excited eyes was...off. “That’s it.”

“That’s it,” Dolls shrugged. “Be ready by 0700 hours tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Waverly looked at Dolls for a moment before glancing back down at the book in her hands. She looked back up at him and opened the book, sliding it across his desk. Dolls’ eyes scanned it before he sighed.

“Earp, we talked about this-”

“We didn’t,” Waverly said, eyes sparkling. “That’s why I’m bringing it up.” She pointed at a passage on the page. “It says here that the tech was designed as basically a fail safe in case the world goes bonkers bananas. A restart button. They say it was given to them by the gods which I would normally find ridiculous, but given everything we saw-”

“Miss Earp-”

“I can’t translate all the words, but it sounds like it will essentially destroy _everything_ so we can start over,” Waverly said, heart beating as she flipped the page and pointed to a picture on a wall that unmistakably depicted Valdez. “And she’s supposed to make sure it doesn’t go off before it’s necessary.”

“I assure you that CSIS is investigating this-”

“But they don’t have this book! Valdez talked about angels, she called me an angel. I haven’t quite figured out what that means yet, but I’m guessing it alludes to the fact that not many people can handle having the tech on their body.”

“Waverly, we’re done here,” Dolls closed the book and slid it back to her. 

“Don’t we need to find her? To find this technology?” Waverly said. “If it gets back into the wrong hands it can literally end the world!”

“Agent Earp, I assure you that someone far above our pay grade is handling it,” Dolls said, fixing her with a serious look. “As far as we’re concerned...this whole thing never happened.”

“Then what did happen?”

“According to the records, Willa Earp set a trap to try and kidnap her sister that ended up with her chasing said sister all around Europe,” Dolls said quietly. “And that’s the official story. Got it?”

Waverly pulled the book back to her chest and sighed, “Fine.” She gave him a look before standing up and heading out to pack her bag.

***

The next morning, Waverly was on a military plane to Paris. Again.

She had her waterproof backpack at her side (she learned that trick from Nicole) and was fiddling with the necklace around her neck. A fun new nervous tic she had picked up. It was impossible not to think of Nicole as the plane got to the base. Waverly was actually annoyed at the amount of time Nicole occupied her mind. 

As she got off the plane she saw a simple grey car sitting on the runway. Waverly mused on the fact that at least she wouldn’t have to fight with anyone to be the driver. As soon as she got into the car, GPS coordinates popped up for where she was supposed to go, and she started driving. 

The radio was turned to a French radio station and Chrissy spoke in her ear. “Well this is fun. Back in the saddle.”

“Yeah,” Waverly said, putting every little ounce of enthusiasm she had behind her words. “It’ll be fun!”

Chrissy was silent for a moment. “You know...I have her number-”

“Chrissy, no,” Waverly said, stomach clenching. “Let’s talk about something else.”

With a sigh, Chrissy moved on to a slightly less painful subject. “Well, they managed to get ahold of Bobo. He’s in custody right now. They have a team scouring South America for the tech but so far no luck.”

“It’s probably best if they never find it,” Waverly sighed. “It’s better off with Valdez anyways. Did you look at that book I left you?”

“Yeah. The rest of the team is totally confused. I’m so upset you didn’t have your camera in at the time.”

“Me too,” Waverly sighed. “I’m not surprised no one can find any other evidence of her though.”

“God, that’s some weird Indiana Jones shit,” Chrissy mumbled.

Waverly took a moment to just breathe as she drove into the city. The streets held a sort of nostalgia to them that she wasn’t sure if she loved or hated. It was wild to her that she had gone from having never been to Paris to being there twice in six months.

“You know...she couldn’t tell you about Willa-”

“Chrissy-”

“It was confidential, she could have lost her job.”

“Yeah, well she could have lost her job for fucking me, too. If she cared about me-” Waverly cut herself off, an edge of bitterness in her voice. “Can we just drop it? Please?”

“Sorry,” Chrissy said, quickly changing the subject. “Here, take this parking up here and go into the bakery.”

Waverly parked and looked out her window at the familiar bakery. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Just order two vegan chocolate croissants,” Chrissy said. “It’ll give you the next direction.”

Tipping her head back to rest on the headrest, Waverly sighed. The sign of the vegan bakery blinked for a moment before it flickered on, sun setting on the busy city. When Nicole brought her here, she thought it’d been so romantic. Who even knew there was a vegan bakery in Paris? All that butter. But she had found it and made sure they went there so that Waverly could indulge in Parisian pastries.

“Waves?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah I mean, yes. I’m going,” Waverly said, quickly getting out of the car. She walked into the bakery and ordered what Chrissy told her to. They slid a small box her way and she sat at the same corner table that Nicole sat at that day and opened it. Nestled inside were two very normal looking croissants. She lifted one up and under it was a very small magnet. Waverly placed the magnet in a groove on her watch and her eye camera went blank for a moment before a wire diagram of the Eiffel Tower popped up for only her to see. It blinked for a moment, bright green on a dark background, until it zoomed to the observation deck of the landmark and an X popped up, marking that that’s where she needed to go. 

Waverly took a bite of the croissant, practically moaning at how good it was, slumping back in her chair as she let the flaky pastry flood her mouth with flavor. “This feels almost too easy.”

“Dolls did say it was going to be easy,” Chrissy reminded her.

Waverly nodded and finished off her croissant before taking the box and going back to the car. She made her way to the Eiffel Tower, finding parking that was surprisingly close and headed to the security line. The sun was down and the lights to the Eiffel Tower were turning on, sparkling over the city. The guard just waved her through and Waverly walked by without a second glance. 

She walked past the stanchions where lines of people usually waited to get into the elevator that went straight up to the main part of the tower. She rode the elevator up, watching as the city grew smaller below her. Maybe it was a mix of the view and how high up she was, but Waverly’s nerves flew in her stomach like butterflies disturbed in the grass. 

“There’s no reason I should be worried, right, Chris?” 

“No, place has been scanned and the package is at the top,” Chrissy said. “Just walk out and you’ll know it when you see it.”

“Alright,” Waverly mumbled as the door dinged, indicating that it was opening. She stepped out onto the large metal viewing deck. There was a little overhang and yellow stairs going up to a second deck, but a large part of the viewing deck was open under the sky with a metal fence around it so people couldn’t unwittingly fall off the edge.

There were only a few lights around, the city mostly being what illuminated her. She walked out towards fence and sighed. Breathing in the crisp night air, Waverly felt her lungs expand almost painfully.

“Hey there, Agent Earp.”

Waverly spun quickly, pulling the gun from her belt as she did and holding it up in front of her towards the source of the voice. 

Standing against one of the beams holding up the second deck was Nicole, that stupid cocky smile on her face that made Waverly’s belly warm and knees weak. She was wearing a simple black suit with crisp white shirt that was unbuttoned way too far down to not be distracting. Waverly remembered to breathe when her lungs started burning and she gasped for breath.

“Aaand I’m out. Good luck!” Chrissy said, before the beep came that told Waverly she was totally alone.

“I...Nicole,” she said, slowly lowering her weapon in front of her. Her name felt like a sugar cube melting on her tongue.

“‘Fraid so,” Nicole said, slowly shuffling towards her with her head bent. Some red hair fell across her face and Waverly had to lick her lips.

“I-” Waverly shook her head. “What are you doing here?” 

Nicole tucked her hands in the pockets of her pants and stopped close to Waverly. “I came to see you.”

Waverly raised an eyebrow. “You know America and Canada are a lot closer together than the two of us going to Paris?”

“Yeah, but it’s more romantic this way,” Nicole said, gesturing over her shoulder. Waverly saw a small table set up with some candles and a bottle of wine. 

Her eyebrow just went further into her hairline. “Are you serious?”

“I was hoping that-” Nicole paused, taking a moment to look at Waverly, their eyes connecting. “I miss you, Waverly.”

Waverly gaped at Nicole for a moment. At the woman standing before her despite the fact that Waverly had fully abandoned her in a hospital, for lack of a better term. Nicole had been hurting and Waverly just never went back, ignoring every attempt of hers to reach out. And now she was here.

“But I left you.”

A flash of pain passed over brown eyes and Waverly clasped her hands in front of her to stop herself from reaching out.

“Yeah that...hurt,” Nicole said, voice cracking. “I didn’t understand it for a while. I was angry, I’ll admit it. But I eventually got over it.”

“And now you’re...here,” Waverly said, still not entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming. “I _ignored_ you. All your letters. So why...now?”

“I’m very aware,” Nicole said with a hint of a smile through the pain. “I’m not going to lie, it hurt a lot. But I wanted to give you the space to heal and figure things out. I was hoping you’d end up reaching back out for me, but when you didn’t I decided to take things into my own hands. Clearly.”

Waverly swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry I...shut you out.”

“Like I said, I understand. I should have told you about Willa,” Nicole said, voice scratchy. “You have to believe me, Waverly. I wanted to tell you, I did, but we were in the middle of the mission and it was classified, and then it was too late.”

“I want to trust you, Nicole,” Waverly said. “And I do. I was kind of a shit ticket too, leaving you in the hospital like that. No explanation.”

Nicole chuckled. “Yeah I was pretty sure I was dying it hurt so badly. But I felt so bad that I kept that from you. I truly am sorry.”

Waverly shook her head as she stepped closer to Nicole, looking up at her and seeing the Parisian lights reflected in hazel eyes. Her heart banged painfully on her ribs as her fingers subconsciously found the edge of Nicole’s lapel and pulled the fabric nervously between her fingers. 

“Can I make a confession?” Nicole whispered. Waverly could see Nicole’s hands fidgeting nervously in her pockets and she nodded. Nicole licked her lips, visibly swallowing. “I’m terrified right now.”

Waverly tilted her head. “Why?”

“You,” Nicole chuckled. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me that you don’t feel the same way about me anymore.” Brown eyes focused on her shoes and Nicole let out a shaky breath. “I’ve been imagining this moment in my head for...months.”

“How does it usually go? In your head?” Waverly asked.

“Depends. Sometimes you let me hold you and kiss you and other times-...well other times you push me away and say you never want to see me again.”

Waverly felt her heart break and she shook her head. “I guess reality is a little more complicated than that.”

“Guess so.”

“I definitely don’t want to push you away,” Waverly said, licking her lips. “It’s actually...really hard not to kiss you right now.”

Nicole’s head shot up to look at Waverly, hope back in her eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I...have a confession too,” Waverly gave a fleeting smile, trying to ease some of, not only her own, but also Nicole’s tension. “It wasn’t just the thing with Willa...I was worried you wouldn’t want me after everything was over.”

“What?” Nicole frowned, arms wrapping protectively around Waverly’s body and bringing her close. She got a wave of Nicole’s perfume and pressed the scent to the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “Are you serious, Waves? Why wouldn’t I want you? You’re amazing, and everything I’ve ever looked for.”

Just the words made Waverly’s heart soar as she unconsciously pulled herself closer to Nicole. “I’m boring,” Waverly blurted. “I’m boring and all I do is read stupid ancient history books and help my sister on missions.”

“All of those things are far from boring or stupid,” Nicole said. “I love how smart you are and how you just…_know_ things. Random things no one should know. And I love how excited you get when you learn something new or get a chance to talk about something you love.”

Waverly blushed and rested her forehead on Nicole’s chest to hide it. Even though her brain told her to stay far far away from Nicole until they sorted everything out and talked, she couldn’t being herself to be any further away from her. It was hard enough for Waverly not to jump her bones right here.

She missed Nicole. _God_ she missed her. 

All the lame excuses she had built up to keep herself away from Nicole seemed to crumble with their proximity. Waverly brushed her nose against the soft fabric of Nicole’s shirt, tempted to turn her head just a little to the side and kiss the exposed skin of her chest.

“I want to be with you,” Nicole whispered, a level of vulnerability in her voice that Waverly hadn’t heard before. “I know we still have a lot to learn about each other. But I want to learn. I want to try. With you.”

Waverly’s heart beat so fast it was vibrating. “We live far away-”

“I applied,” Nicole interrupted. “To CSIS. The transfer has been approved by both parties. They’re just...waiting for my okay. And I wanted to check with you first. If that was okay.”

Waverly pulled back a little to look up at Nicole. She had a fresh scar in her eyebrow, probably from their mission together. Waverly brought her fingers up to trace it and Nicole leaned into her touch. 

“You transferred? For me?”

“I would do anything for you, Waverly,” Nicole said gently. There was a cocky twitch of her lips like she couldn’t help herself when she said. “And _to_ you.”

Waverly gave her a look but still couldn’t help but feel charmed by it. “What if you get bored?”

“I will never get bored,” Nicole said with a shake of her head.

“No more secrets,” Waverly whispered, chin already tilting up and lips begging to kiss Nicole. “I can’t bear to have any more secrets between us.”

“Then I should tell you my secret contact is Shae,” Nicole said as she pressed her forehead to Waverly’s. She reeled back in shock for a moment but Nicole’s grip around her tightened, bringing her back in. “We’re strictly platonic now. But she’s high up in MI6 and she helps me.”

“Oh, wow,” Waverly said, hand cupping the side of Nicole’s neck. “And it’s...platonic?”

Nicole nodded. “She helped me with this. With wooing you.”

Waverly chuckled and brushed their lips together. “You already had me wooed.”

Nicole’s smile was so wide that her dimples popped and Waverly’s legs went weak. 

“So, Waverly Earp...can we try this? Try us?” Nicole said.

Waverly let out a broken breath, eyes fluttering closed as she felt tears pressing against the back of her eyes. She was so overwhelmed. It would be so much easier to say no, she probably should. For some reason it felt selfish to say yes. But she wanted Nicole more than she’d ever wanted anyone in her life.

“Please say yes?” Nicole’s voice was barely a whisper, but heavy with pain and hope.

Waverly opened her eyes and she could feel the tears on her eyelashes. “Yes,” Waverly whispered, one hand sliding up into Nicole’s hair. “Yes. Let’s do this.”

Nicole let out a relieved chuckle that shook Waverly to her core. She fully rested her body weight on Nicole as their lips came together, and her heart felt light for the first time in weeks. Nicole held her so closely that her feet were lifted a little off the ground and she was on her tiptoes. Almost as if she was getting ready to climb Nicole like a tree, just as Chrissy had been suggesting for months. 

When they finally pulled back, gasping for air, their faces remained close as they both laughed in happiness.

“Well look at me, CSIS’s newest agent.”

“If they’ll still have you after I tell them what it was like being your partner,” Waverly teased, tangling her fingers tighter in red hair and bringing Nicole’s face close.

“You mean, how amazing and professional I am?” Nicole said, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Waverly’s mouth. “About how good I am in bed?”

Waverly snorted even as blood rushed between her thighs. “About how _cocky_ you are,” Waverly mumbled, even as she brought her into another slow kiss. She slipped her tongue into Nicole’s mouth and her mind went blank, the urge to wrap her legs around Nicole’s waist and just take her right there on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower getting stronger and stronger.

Nicole’s hands slipped down to her ass and Waverly moaned.

“I missed you,” Nicole whispered, squeezing and lifting Waverly so she could wrap her legs around her. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” Waverly said. Just then the lights of the Eiffel Tower began to sparkle, an impressive display that could be seen all over Paris. The lights bounced around them and Waverly laughed, heart full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)
> 
> I'm also about to post a cute Patreon exclusive fic for January and a lovey dovey one for February. I also post chapters there early, before they're available on AO3 so head over that way if you're interested.
> 
> ALSO I have a book (a real original hard copy book wtf) that is being published through Bella Books on March 15th. It's called "Queerleaders" by M.B. Guel and is currently available through Amazon on pre-order.
> 
> Phew. That was the longest end note I've ever done. I love ya'll and I'm very excited to share the next couple of fics I have planned with you as well as my original stuff. Thank you for reading <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> [Come yell at me on Twitter if you're so inclined.](https://twitter.com/bootsncatz)


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